When do you Castle?

Everybody has a different oppion about castleing.  Some people wait forever to castle, some do it immediately, and some just a wait a little while.  What do you do?  Why do so many people have different ways of doing it?  Is there no best time or technique for Castleing?

I study the position and if there is a checkmate threat i castle. Although sometimes when you castle people find a weakness in your castling and attack it.

best time to castle just before you opponent strikes.

Good players seldom castle.....

I understand the question you are asking.

I mostly like to wait to castle.

I normally will not castle right away as I am never sure which side I'll like to castle on.

I have noticed that some people like to castle as soon as they can.  Within the first 5 moves even.  When they do this, it allows me to know where exactly I need to mobilize my peices so I can start attacking.

I don't like when we are deep into a game and the only thing that can break my attack is if my opponent castles.  I know I'll have to start repositioning my peices.

This is what I like to do to my opponent.  I develope quickly and leave the option of castling on either side so as to restrict my opponents gameplan.

Only when I play Kings Gambit do I castle right away because the attack comes very early.  It helps keep my attack going with the rook in the center when I'm white and it helps avoid a sacrifice to keep me from castling when I play black.

When it's safe to do so. 

Same here.  Depends on position and how I am playing the game at the present time...  What about blocking checkmate once you have castled? for example of the checkmates I mean see the board below.

The result of the moving of the pawn is as follows.

Stop messing with the beginners.

@ilikechees97: the thing to do is not to get into such positions... the pawn on g3 is a weakness (if it were still on g2, or the bishop on g2 was still there, then h2-h3 was a possible defence). Also, a knight is better on f3 than on e2 - on f3 it covers h2. But then you should make sure e5-e4 isn't possible...

In your second diagram, better is 3...Qxf2#.

I'd go with 1.h4 in your diagram - the position doesn't look good but it's better than getting 'mated right away.

Also, I'd recommend castling as soon as possible - so long as there's no immediate threat to deal with. You should develope your Kingside with a view to castle.

In most games, you want to castle quickly, and usually to the kingside. Although that's correct most of the time, there are certainly times where it was better to delay or castle on a different side. Sometimes castling is even bad IF you're "castling into an attack", meaning if your opponent plays stupid and puts all of his pieces on the kingside (away from the center), then instead of castling right away (which would justify this) you should play in the center to drive those pieces back before doing it. Most positions though you'll enjoy the connected rooks and safer king. If you have the initiative or are safe, then you might want to delay castling simply to put that tempo to something more dynamic, and only castle when you really do need the rooks connected. Sometimes the king can even stay in the center, if there is an endgame, or the center is closed enough and you don't want to face a pawn storm on a flank.

You want to castle on the opposite side of your opponent when you have better attacking chances and could make use of pushing the pawns, but don't castle on the opposite side if your opponent has the initiative (unless it's the only option) as his pawn storm will of course crush yours. Sometimes either way is fine but opposite is more aggressive so that will lead to an attacking game, while perhaps going on the same side will lead to a more positional battle, probably in the center. There are many factors to consider where and when to castle if at all, and it all completely depends on the position, though more often than not castling kingside soon is a good idea.

In non sicilian e4 openings and gambits especially, the quick castling and open lines allows the rooks and all of the pieces to get right in the game. People like Morphy would sac a pawn and find dynamic ways to keep the king from castling long enough for the king to get crushed. Because once a king is castled, although it's committed, it's much harder to attack compared to in the center (that is, if central files are open!) and you have to decentralize your pieces to do a piece attack there, which is taking a certain amount of risk.

when the king tell,s you to?

CASTLE AS SOON AS POSIBIL

You should castle at the spur of the moment. I always seem to castle late, which usually leads to pros. and cons. The reason it's good is because in the opening you fight for the center, and castling usually loses a move, when things get calmer and both of you are thinking what to do, you can castle and it wouldn't really be a "waste" move. The con is that it could leave your king exposed to danger. If you haven't castled yet your opponent could try to crack open the center and expose your king.

okay, on your last diagram, you should play h4, not h3 because with h4 the queen can't get across and so she needs reinforcements to help. That gives you plenty of time to bring your OWN reinforcements to your monarch's rescue. Also I noticed that instead of 3...Qh1+, black can mate with 3...Qxf2# Right?

I was just wondering, what kind of idiot would castle into some garbage position like that? You have the g-pawn moved, you don't have a bishop inside, your knight is a mile away from getting there and your queen is trapped away from the king, it looks like white just wants to be mated.

By the way, h4 isn't good because black can go g5 which will lead to problems. The real reason you can't do anything is because you're being dominated in the center. You're cramped and so, you can't move your pieces over.

Castling is a DEFENSIVE move, and more often than not, weaker than if you had NOT castled. Now that may mean that it is 51 to 49 in favor of NOT castling.

Of course, there may be times (49 out of 100) where it is PRUDENT to castle, but overall, castling should NOT be employed the majority of the time.

First, you tuck your king into the corner, leaving him little options for flight. Second, we good players know that once we open up that diagonal, once we eliminate that Knight, your back is against the wall.

Playing a good AGGRESSIVE attacking game and keeping the KING in the center of the first rank. This gives him breathing room and keeps a BALANCED chessboard (from your perspective).

Finally, a QUEEN side castle is a stronger move than a King side castle for the exact same reasons (breathing room).

There was NEVER a defensive player who won the WCC. ALL the greatest players were ATTACKERS without exeption. FACT.

Of course, there were many great defensive players, but if you took the top 10 attackers of all time and pitted them against the top 10 defensive players of all time, a defensive player would NEVER win the tournament. EVER!!!

Care to debate history with me?

Here is a simple way of saying it:

• Check to see if you are attack or them
• Check and see if you need to wait a move or keep on causing "problems"
• If you need to get rooks going expecially onto the e-file
• If you have a pinned piece that you want to use or to force an opponent to trade a bishop for the knight (dangers it can cause)
• If you know the opening line just go along with it.

This is a few simple rules and when you get better it will be easier to figure out what is from experiences.