Is the "Castling" move (where the rook and King switch places) a real move in chess, or just made up?

Question

Is this a real tournament rule, or just something some lame-o made up?

Answer 1

Yes it is a real chess move you can do

a. as long as it is the first move by both rook and king

ib. no opperisition pieces could move between them.

no pices are in the way.

Answer 2

yes castling is a real tournament rule and is the one and only very special move made for the king.

Answer 3

it's a real move

Answer 4

Yes it is a real move.

The king & the rook, however, do not 'switch places'.  First, there can be no other piece between the rook & the king, and you cannot currently be in check.  You move your rook to the space next to the king & then jump the king over to the space on the other side of the rook.  If the rook is on the king's side of the board, then you care castling kingside, conversely, if the rook is on the queen's side of the board, you are castling queenside.

Good luck!

PS  I taught a 10 year old to play chess over the summer & I found that I had to check to rule book a couple of times because I just do things automatically now & it was hard for me to put into words what I was doing.  So the moral of the story is that it's always good to check an official rulebook when you're not sure of something.

Answer 5

It's perfectly legal under certain circumstances...however, the King and Rook don't "switch places".

Answer 6

It is currently a real tournament rule, but it wasnt always. I am not sure the exact date this became a rule, but castling, and pawn promotion were both introduced much after the original game was invented.

Answer 7

Castling is a legal move in tournaments but the following conditions must be met:

    * The king that makes the castling move has not yet moved in the game.

    * The rook that makes the castling move has not yet moved in the game.

    * The king is not in check.

    * The king does not move over a square that is attacked by an enemy piece during the castling move, i.e., when castling, there may not be an enemy piece that can move (in case of pawns: by diagonal movement) to a square that is moved over by the king.

    * The king does not move to a square that is attacked by an enemy piece during the castling move, i.e., you may not castle and end the move with the king in check.

    * All squares between the rook and king before the castling move are empty.

    * The King and rook must occupy the same rank (or row).

When castling, the king moves two squares towards the rook, and the rook moves over the king to the next square, i.e., black's king on e8 and rook on a8 move to: king c8, rook d8 (long castling), white's king on e1 and rook on h1 move to: king g1, rook f1 (short castling).

You can get diagrams by clicking on the link:

http://www.chessvariants.org/d.chess/che...

Answer 8

it is real, i used it in a tournament

Answer 9

It is a real rule and so is the en passant rule.  Look it up.  Lots of backyard chess players don't know all of the rules because the person they learned from didn't know them all.  Do yourself a favor and learn all the rules so you won't be surprised.