Castling early best option?

Is it the percieved wisdom in chess, that castling as soon as possible is always the best option ? if so why. I have always thoight that the King is trapped in a corner and can more easily be attacked. I have won quite a few games after attacking a castled King. Although i am quite an inexperienced player

As a general rule.

Advance pawns to centre (c4,d4,e4 for example);
Develop Knights;
Develop Bishops;
Castle;
Move Rooks behind central pawns.

Attack and win.

Not necessarily always precisely in that order and remember your opponent will be moving too.

As a beginner, one quick way to lose is to keep your king in the center. The reason is that central pawn breaks often occur very early in the game.
Center pawns are usually pushed in the first few moves.

It's much harder to break open the pawns around a castled king
In some openings where the central pawn structure is securely locked up, you might be better off not to castle, but you will win more games by just castling.

Never always do anything.

Now that your confused I'll explain my point.

It's good to castle early unless it's a bad idea. All of the rules of thumb are only guidelines and not laws.

Don't castle early if:

You are safe in the center and are heading to a quick endgame

You want to wait for your opponent to castle so you can go the other way and rush him/her with pawns

You have a decisive move that can't wait one tempo for you to castle.

Originally posted by Mike Rice
Is it the percieved wisdom in chess, that castling as soon as possible is always the best option ? if so why. I have always thoight that the King is trapped in a corner and can more easily be attacked. I have won quite a few games after attacking a castled King. Although i am quite an inexperienced player

The usual stages of development is with the central pawns; then the knights; then the bishops; then castle; then rooks to central/open files. Somewhere in between, the queen might jump in. But normally early queen sortie is a waste of time.

As a general rule, develop with a view of controlling the central squares, and if possible develop with a threat because that would limit the opponent's choices of replies. Knights are usually developed first before bishops because we are more certain of their 'best' squares, i.e. c3 & f3 (controlling central squares), but bishops might have several good options.

Castling is almost always good because it is the only move in chess that can move two pieces in a single turn (rook and king), thus shuffling the king to the corner of the board and immediately connects the rooks. I don't believe that a castled king is easier to attack when compared to a king left in the middle of the board. The exception is that when the pawn barrier in front of the castled king has been compromised, for example due to h3 (in an attempt to deal with the annoying Bg4 pin).

It is also interesting to note that in some games, the theme of an attack is to disallow an enemy's king to castle at all, so that he is subject to fiece attack at a later part of the game. Check out the Thread "Tutorial Offered", where Dragon Fire sacrificed a bishop in order to prevent the enemy's king from castling. It is an instructive game that one!

Originally posted by briancron
Never always do anything.

Now that your confused I'll explain my point.

It's good to castle early unless it's a bad idea. All of the rules of thumb are only guidelines and not laws.

Don't castle early if:

You are safe in the center and are heading to a quick endgame

You want to wait for your opponent to castle so you can go the other way ...[text shortened]... him/her with pawns

You have a decisive move that can't wait one tempo for you to castle.

good point, I just played someone that just castled mindlessly and it was too dangerous to do so and ended up losing the game

Game 2707723

Generally you should castle as soon as possible for 2 basic reasons:
1) The King is more vulnerable to attack in the central files
2) The move connects the 2 rooks on the back rank & brings them more into play.
There are instances when castling may endanger your king, but these are not that common.

Originally posted by HomerJSimpson
good point, I just played someone that just castled mindlessly and it was too dangerous to do so and ended up losing the game

Game 2707723

Castling into an attack when all your defending pieces are on the opposite side of the board is a bad idea. Always be alert to attacks of and sacrifices against the kings pawn barrier usually the Rooks pawn as in this game, sometimes forcing movement of the knights pawn creating weaknesses.

0-0 was a mistake here but I believe white control of space was already overwhelming. It never ceases to amaze me why lower rated players choose openings like Alekhines which give complex difficult open games that, in my opinion, they would be best to avoid. I have faced it a number of times here (against lower rated opponents) and always won easily and quickly once the book is left. My recommendation would be do avoid until you have a much more thorough grasp of tactics and strategy.

its difficult to see a good plan for black at the point he castled as he has all his pieces on their worse possible squares and devllopment is tricky. Perhaps f6 or f5 but I suspect this is too dangerous so it must be Nf8 - Qe7 - Nd7 - Bb7 - 0-0-0 (not necessarily in that order).

I've read this a few months back:

http://www.chesscenter.com/shop/item5160.htm

I'm still in the habit of castling early, but this is certainly interesting.
Basically it's about clearing the back rank, keeping your options open & opponent guessing!

not a bad read.

J

Originally posted by HomerJSimpson
good point, I just played someone that just castled mindlessly and it was too dangerous to do so and ended up losing the game

Game 2707723

Wow, negates the whole point of castleing.. Thanks for sharing!

Sometimes I voluntarily wait with the castling because my opponent has the opportunity to attack me on either the kingside or the queenside. Why not wait and see what's going to happen first.

Now I have a game going where he can ruin my pawn structure on my kingside. But my queenside is also vulnerable. I plan to stay in the middle a while longer and hope for the best.

Originally posted by Mike Rice
Is it the percieved wisdom in chess, that castling as soon as possible is always the best option ?

no. its a general principle, which should not be blindly followed. It definitely is not always the best option. Sometimes it can be the worst option.

of course there are some situations when your king would be better off in the center of the board. Not very often thou...

Originally posted by Mike Rice
Is it the percieved wisdom in chess, that castling as soon as possible is always the best option ? if so why. I have always thoight that the King is trapped in a corner and can more easily be attacked. I have won quite a few games after attacking a castled King. Although i am quite an inexperienced player

Since in most games centre pawns are advanced early leaving lines open for attacks on the king, castling usually puts the king in a safer place behind a row of unmoved pawns. It also does in one move what would otherwise take three, so there can be no question of it losing a tempo. In the recent World Championship Match, of the fifteen games actually played, only one was without castling; in two one side castled; and in the other twelve both sides did. Twenty-six times out of a possible thirty. So practice at the highest level is that it is generally sound to do so, but not simply as an automatic routine move.

Originally posted by Mike Rice
Is it the percieved wisdom in chess, that castling as soon as possible is always the best option ? if so why. I have always thoight that the King is trapped in a corner and can more easily be attacked. I have won quite a few games after attacking a castled King. Although i am quite an inexperienced player

If the center is closed and there are little or no tactical possiblities, castling is not always necessary. One of the benefits of not castling early is it gives you the flexibility to castle kingside or queenside. However, if you castle early, your opponent (if he hasn't castled) now knows where your king is and can develop his castling plan around it.