quick question

Originally posted by hahahaaaa
There is a flip side to this. A king normaly can't castle through a check, but if the piece is pinned, it can. So it is odd that you can't sit your king on a square that would be check if the piece was unpinned. But that is chess and cest la vie.

No the king can't castle.

Originally posted by Sicilian Smaug
A King cannot castle through check under any circumstances, whether the checking piece is pinned or not.

Argg! I thought we agreed that it was my turn to reply :'(

I'm telling!

Russ.... Where are you.... Russ 😠

Originally posted by Valmore

There's a contradiction between those two answers and I think that's really what's upseting Trevor here.

Actually, there's no contradition whatsoever. They're both saying the same thing; that by taking the piece, you are moving into check (a place in which the king can be captured) first, which is not allowed; similarly, if you were to look at the game actually ending with the capture of the king, your king would be captured first.

The pinned piece can't move for the very same reason your king can't take the piece protected by the pinned piece - both moves would result in the king being threatened, so neither is allowed.

Originally posted by RahimK
No the king can't castle.

Really, I was able to do it under the chessbase database, but I'll take your word for it, maybe it is a glitch.

Originally posted by hahahaaaa
Really, I was able to do it under the chessbase database, but I'll take your word for it, maybe it is a glitch.

Are you sure? Chessbase isn't know to make glitches like that. It's possible that (like here) the analysis function lets you move pieces wherever you want, legal or not. There is one other possibility, because it's a rule that (according to a column in Chess Life a while back) that even GMs have been known to get wrong on rare occasions.

It's only the king that can't move through check during castling. On the other hand, the rook can move through whatever it wants. This comes up in situations like: King on e1, rook on a1, black knight on d2. 0-0-0 is a legal move in this situation, as the king moving from e1 to c1 is never attacked by the knight. Similarly, castling kingside or queenside would be legal in a situation where there's a black bishop on e4 - kingside, the bishop is attacking only h1, where the rook resides; and queenside, the bishop attacks just b1, where the rook travels through (but not the king).

This might not be your problem, but I'm sure someone will read this and learn something new. 🙂

Yes, I tried it again and it worked. The position I got to was white ready to short castle. Black's rook on f7 was eyeing f1 while it was pinned by a bishop on h5 to the king on e8. The database would not allow me to move my king over one space on the "checked" square, but it would allow me to castle.

Originally posted by hahahaaaa
Yes, I tried it again and it worked. The position I got to was white ready to short castle. Black's rook on f7 was eyeing f1 while it was pinned by a bishop on h5 to the king on e8. The database would not allow me to move my king over one space on the "checked" square, but it would allow me to castle.

Weird. Is this the online database, or one of the actual ChessBase programs? I have ChessBase and have never been able to do this, but I haven't played around with the online database all that much (and can't check right now at work) - I can imagine there being some bugs in that and the programming being not quite as tight. 😛

Originally posted by hahahaaaa
Yes, I tried it again and it worked. The position I got to was white ready to short castle. Black's rook on f7 was eyeing f1 while it was pinned by a bishop on h5 to the king on e8. The database would not allow me to move my king over one space on the "checked" square, but it would allow me to castle.

I think the db is set up wrong. Similar to rhp analyses board.


It's not allowed to castle through check.

Mental picture, Rook = Constant Machine gun with unlimited ammo. King = King

Would you let your beloved King go through an area which was being fired upon?

You cross that line and your dead. Sure the machine gun can't move but it's still firing away.

Or picture a fire hose which is blasting out water. I dare you to cross through the stream of water. I double dare you. I defy you to!

Point taken?

It's the online database. I tried it now (I should have done it before) with the rook unpinned and it still allowed me to castle through check. Sorry.

Originally posted by Sicilian Smaug
I prefer the image of a rook (or the soldier manning the rook) throwing rocks rather than firing a machine gun. A machine gun is too modern, chess is more medieval, I think so any way.

Throwing rocks continously?

Then yes, otherwise the king can sneak in there when there is a delay between rocks arriving.

En passant:

You are the lonely pawn shunned by everyone. Your whole life you dream about becoming another piece. Your King tells you that you will never become anything but a mere pawn, but the other King loves he's beloved pawns and treats them royale.

You hate the opposite pawns and swear to give up your life and take one of them down with you.

Several years later, you reach the 5th rank and the opposite pawn is on the 7th rank. It's his move, what will he do? He can't move because if he does, then you will gobble him up and spit him out like trash. You get a cockey grin on your face waiting to see what he does. He points at something in the distance and when you turn to see what he's point at, he takes a huge leap onto the 5th rank! He laughs at you as you both stand side by side. How could this be possible you think to your self? I have to exact my revenge but moved to the 5th rank on not 6th. Your start pitying yourself. Your whole life is ruined. You cry to yourself is this fair, O why did this happen!!

Then you say en-passant and capture the pawn and now you can become the queen you wanted to be and perhaps be the second bride to that playa king.


And that my friends is why en-passant was created. To make it fair for poor pawns who don't get a chance to capture the other pawns.

In the blitz chess I've played, you are allowed to move into check. When you do so, the opponent can take your King and win.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
In the blitz chess I've played, you are allowed to move into check. When you do so, the opponent can take your King and win.

Yeah, that's a pretty common rule (and any other illegal move would also allow you to claim a win). I've also seen it dealt with in other ways, like making the person take it back, with the other player getting some amount of bonus time (2 minutes is typical, I think) back on the clock.

Originally posted by trevor33
if you have something pinned in front of your opponents king, say a knight and you want to take something with your king but its protected by the piece that can't move can you take it? i know you would be moving into check but if the other piece can't move does it count as check?

You have a 1511 rating on redhotpawn, and you don't know the answer yourself? Come now, mate. Away with yourself!