some castling queries...

im a bit confused bout some of the chess principles concerning casting;

>why should u not pin a piece to ur opponents queen before theyve castled?

>why shd u not push ur f pawn before castling?

>also how do u decide which side to castle to if is isnt clear cut?

thanks for any help u can offer
marcussucrammarcussucrammarcus

well, to answer the first question, by pinning the knight to the queen, you actually place a lot of pressure on the kingside especially if your opponent has castle kingside, however, if you pin him first, then your opponent has the option of castling in the other direction to the queenside which means your bishop is now poorly placed. Once he does castle and he commits himself to the kingside pinning the knight is usually a good idea.

You shouldn't push the f-pawn usually because you open up that e1-h4 diagonal which happens to be right where your king sits. Also, you have no pieces that can jump to that diagonal to defend. The knight jumps to f6 and the bishop to e2. However, the c-pawn is okay to open usually because both the queen bishop and queen knight can block that diagonal if your opponent attacks it. But the f-pawn's diagonal is highly vulnerable

Usually, i try to castle whichever side I first have the option of castling... However, there are differences between 0-0 and 0-0-0. 0-0, kingside castling means your king is better protected. However 0-0-0, queenside caslting, means your rook is immediately on the d-file which may be an important open file. Also, if the pawn structure is bad on one side, you usually don't want to castle their, and if you want a very open attacking game, you should castle away from the side your opponent has castled because then you can attack his castled king with pawns. i.e. if you castle queenside and your opponent castled kingside, you can send the f g and h pawns to attack him while still keeping your king safe.

thanks dude, that was v helpful

I can't see what is wrong with pushing the f pawn before castling.

I tend to push it when I play the KG as do most other people 🙂

It is also pushed in many other openings I wont mention now.

However I certainly wouldn't recommend pushing both g and f right away 😉

Originally posted by gumbie
I can't see what is wrong with pushing the f pawn before castling.

I tend to push it when I play the KG as do most other people 🙂

It is also pushed in many other openings I wont mention now.

However I certainly wouldn't recommend pushing both g and f right away 😉