Castling

Can you castle when your rook is under attack or not? I've never gotten a clear answer to this question, and heard that a GM asked it during a tournement. I always beleived you could, but other people have doubts. What is the offical ruling?

Originally posted by Basekick
Can you castle when your rook is under attack or not? I've never gotten a clear answer to this question, and heard that a GM asked it during a tournement. I always beleived you could, but other people have doubts. What is the offical ruling?

Originally posted by Grayeyesofsorrow
You can castle if your rook is being attacked, its only when your king passes through attacked squares or is being attack that you cant :-)

I posted this in another thread already, but I will say it again. Grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi admitted in this autobiography that he didn't know this rule and needed clarification during a game that was decades into his chess career. The collective rules relating to castling seem kind of arbitrary to me, and no doubt they underwent some evolution over time to get to where they are now.

Are you positive on that? I was sure that if your rook is under attack, you were alowed to castle only with the opposite rook if possible. Of course, I could be dead wrong. One way to find out. Try it on this site, and if it is illegal, the program will not allow you to do it, and it will somehow indicate that it is an illegal move.

Yes, totally :-)

Originally posted by kingisdead
Are you positive on that?

From what I understand, you can castle if the Rook is under attack. The basic idea is that you cannot castle in such a way that a piece could kill your King if it attacked while you were castling, or on the next move. It comes from the idea that you cannot move into Check.