When should you castle?

I've seen many people that believe to castle in the beginning, middle, and end. Which one is best?

If you're playing someone GOOD, the general rule is to absolutely castle early. White's tempo advantage is not enough to generate that quick of an offense that Black can't set up his defense. And because White is ahead in tempo, unless White wastes moves, Black needs to defend first before he attempts to counterattack (which means castling).

The reason why people castling Kingside like 90% of the time is because there is often time-pressure to castle early. It's hard to find the extra tempo to move the Queen and still be able to castle early enough without coming under attack. I've rarely seen anyone playing Black castle long. 

In top level chess, I think people castle in the first 5-12 moves like 99% of the time. The King is just WAY too vulnerable in the center to risk castling in the middle game.

There's almost no need to castle in the endgame because you want to activate your King in the center of the board, rather than hide it in the corner. And if the King is in the middle, it's easy to activate the Rooks. So castling in the endgame would serve little purpose.

Hope this helps Jailer :)

Who the heck told you to castle in the middle or end? ALWAYS castle early. Castling early is almost necessary to be safe.

 I'm sorry brandonQDSH but that's not entirely true!  It all depends on positioning & at times, it's better to castle Queenside (I've won games this way!). The real disadventage with the Queenside castling is the far pawn which is completely unprotected & can become a point of vulnerability, as oppose to the kingside, where the King defends all 3 pawns.

It depends which openings you play as to which castling you will see.  In the Italian game often you dont want to castle too early, whereas in the spanish game it's usually done on the 5th or sometimes even 4rd move.  As for black castling queenside, this happens in some sicilians, and also I think sometimes in the french.  It definitely happens In the exchange spanish fairly often, and can happen in the king's gambit.  Sometimes players wont castle at all.  This goes for both sides in some of the french lines.  In some lines of the spanish, and danish for example (there will be many other such lines), black will be unable to castle, not that he would want to. 

Another issue with castling queenside is it's easy to just pay attention to your king when you're castling.  When you're castling queenside, don't forget to look where you're putting your rook.  Very easy to get your rooks forked!

Vagamundo,

Exactly where was I wrong? I'm not saying people don't castle long. I'm saying it's FAR LESS FREQUENT than castling short. I've seen lots of Sicilian games where White takes the time to castle long to create an further asymmetric position and have his Kingside pawns free to storm Black's position.

And ABSOULTELY, the tempo disadvantage of castling Queenside is very restrictive. How often to you see GOOD players and grandmasters castle long while playing Black? It's far less frequent than when they castle Kingside. And yes, you're right, not only is the a-pawn vulnerable when castling Queenside, the King is also vulnerable. Not only do you have to use a tempo to move the Queen, you also usually have to use another tempo to play Kb1 to further hide your King in the corner.

It does depend on position, but like 90% of the time, the position calls for castling short so duh :p 

I've seen lots of really bad advice given in the forum, and I can imagine some

beginner receiving the advice as if it were valid, but really it's just another beginner passing along really bad wisdom. I wish there were some magic button that would get pressed so that we could see if the advice-giver is truly 1500+ USCF, and not some novice who has plugged in a fantasy rating in his bio. Anyway, that's one reason why beginners here get confused and I for one think it is a shame as it fouls up the serious student at an early stage. One solution would be for the advice-giving addicts (who are beginners) to put the governor on

For me, I dont think there is a set time to castle. It really does depend on your opponent. Sometimes I castle too early, and that can be worse than not castling at all. Play it as strategy demands. And yes, I'm a novice too.

The general rule is castle early. The more open the position, generally speaking, the sooner you want to castle relative to the closed positions where one can delay castling a bit. Remember, castling is also about development of that rook. The position may be demanding development as well as king safety. Castle early and move your game along--good general rule.

Hi,

Mainly castling happens so early than possible. Sometimes e.g. Caro-Kann in some variation black doesn't castling at all and white castling to the Queenside. sometimes in QGD white plays Qc2 and castling after that...it dependes on...

there is no correct answer; it's up to the individual player's preference.  I castle early; no later than the 7th or 8th move.  If I haven't castled by then, it's because I've messed up.

Cool Tip: If both Queens are off the board, casteling is less valueable.

Without your enemy's Queen around, your King can walk around the board more safely, and maybe even help back up the rest of your pieces; instead of casteling into a corner.

Always castle before 5pm, so that you can enjoy your tea and crumpets in peace.

Castle early if the King is longing to the Rook

I thought the famous advice was to 'castle early and often' :)

Use it when everything is out of the way. . . ,meaning, at the middle of the game when you have no threat on other pieces, , ,

I prefer to castle as soon as possible.  If I can..

Castling as early as you can is usually good, but not when there are other more important matters (although king safety is big on that list). When everything is safe and there are no opportunities to take advantage of, that is when castling should be used.

it depends on the game,if it is a very solid opening like the semi slav, most experts leave castling on both sides and option to not let the oppenent know where to attack and only castle if its really neccerary.But in other openings like the open sicilian its good to castle early as there are lots of checks coming in an open game

So...it depends on the opening