am especially surprised the Masters you were hanging out with in LA agreed to play with the King on its color. Or perhaps back then, the pieces were set up fine and you did not notice.
all in all, it will probably take you many games till you feel comfortable again. As long as you have the patience, there are many players here willing to play and chat with you. best of luck to you !
Greetings. I learned to play chess more than 50 years ago. I never really played it well. I think I always assumed good players were born, like math or music prodigies, that someone like me couldn't possibly develop very far. That notwithstanding, I've always enjoyed the game. There have been periods where I played regularly. E.g. used to meet this guy at Gorky's in Downtown LA to play early in the am. He was rated, I believe, a master or GM. I never really provided him with serious competition. Later I played another GM rated fellow with similar results.
Now, for the first time, I've decided to try to improve my skills in a systematic way. I signed on to chess.com in late Nov. Obviously chess.com sets up the boards in most cases. I noticed, after about a week of playing here, that I was having trouble castling. Normally I castle to the left, because there were fewer pieces in the way. No more. Obviously the queen blocks left-sided castling.
That's right: all these years I've put the king on his own color. Not the queen. I seriously thought there was something wrong with chess.com. I was in the midst of a rapid game. I typed to my opponent: "why is the king on the wrong color?" He responded by disabling chat. LOL.
I asked my wife, who plays, but isn't an avid chess fan: "Where do you place the black king?"
"On the black square," she answered without hesitation.
I did a Google search: had there been a change of rules recently?
Evidently not.
I even stopped in the shop on Thompson. The proprietor was young, but had no recollection of ever setting up boards with king on his own color.
So ... all of these years I've been playing wrong? No one ever said: "Hey, you're setting up the board wrong!" I never noticed when someone else set it up that castling to the right was easier because there were fewer pieces in the way?
Even now I make opening moves with the notion of castling to the left, only to see I screwed up.
The sense of having been right was so pervasive & lasting—it was like discovering something you know to be true, isn't. Suppose you discover that Great Britain never contested Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands, & that Argentine authorities control them to this day? Or that Michaelangelo's bronze of Pope Julius ii stands somewhere in Rome today, never having been melted down by the French & forged into a cannon?
You know, things that aren't maybe daily issues in your life, but were true nonetheless.
It feels as though someone traveled back in time, altered the evolution of chess slightly, & I just never got the memo.
Weird, huh?