Chessbase: Proposing castling as better move in non castling-games

en.chessbase.com/post/dortmund-festival-2023-d3

Sometimes I ask myself if Chessbase ever reads their own articles. Kramnik, Caruana, Eljanov and Kollars are playing chess games with the non castling rule in Dortmund but in the published analysis of those games you find several times castling proposed.

I dont understand whats the point of the no castling chess. Castling was invented for a reason.

@Katoh1 said in #2:
> I dont understand whats the point of the no castling chess. Castling was invented for a reason.

As I understand it, the main point is to come up with a chess variant that hasn't been engine-bashed to death yet. Alternatively, one could also argue that castling is a contrived or unnatural-looking move since it's the only kind of move that moves 2 pieces on the same turn. Moreover, the pieces move through each other, one of them an extra space more than it would normally be allowed to move.

@Katoh1 said in #2:
> I dont understand whats the point of the no castling chess. Castling was invented for a reason.

No one forces you to play no castling chess. But by now, you must be aware people have invented chess variants. Some people like the variants better. Some people like to play both classical chess, and variants. No castling chess is just one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of chess variants out there.

@peppie23 said in #1:
> en.chessbase.com/post/dortmund-festival-2023-d3
>
> Sometimes I ask myself if Chessbase ever reads their own articles. Kramnik, Caruana, Eljanov and Kollars are playing chess games with the non castling rule in Dortmund but in the published analysis of those games you find several times castling proposed.
I guess, the published analysis is an engine analysis, and you would have to recode the engine to tell it about the non-castlich rule. That would have been work.

@sheckley666 said in #5:
> I guess, the published analysis is an engine analysis, and you would have to recode the engine to tell it about the non-castlich rule. That would have been work.
Yes it is even worse than what I wrote. Not only Chessbase doesn't read their own articles but the analysis is often nothing more than very low engine feedback which anyone can create in a split second by pushing a button. The newssite from Chessbase is nothing more than a portal to sell their products.

Adapting an engine to a (new) variant is not rocket science (for no castling chess on many platforms a user can do it himself by feeding in the starting position piece by piece, alternatively just switch kings and queens and use 'mirror analysis').

The issue is rather the degree to which starting sequences (opening moves) being memorized play a larger role compared to creativity and technique i.e. endgame skill.

In general, the more powerful the forces in relation to the size of the board, the more pressure there is on the second player to play accurately from the start. Personally I think the time is ripe for Capablanca Chess but on a 10 x 10 board, while Edward Lasker (born 1885) wrote "... I played many test games with Capablanca, and they rarely lasted more than twenty or twenty-five moves. We tried boards of 10×10 squares and 10×8 squares, and we concluded that the latter was preferable because hand-to-hand fights start earlier on it", nowadays it is exactly the "early hand-to-hand fights" that changes the chess (variant) skill set from what it was historically.

Currently playing mostly chess960 but willing to prepare for standard if the stakes are high enough. No Castling chess makes a lot of sense to me keeping in mind that "the more powerful the forces in relation to the size of the board the more pressure there is on the second player to play accurately from the start", one might also consider dropping the rule that pawns can move two squares initially - like castling this rule was invented way before computer analysis to speed up the game. In all the mentioned variants randomising the starting position can also be considered.

Would like lichess, a truly free site, to offer more variants, will post on that.

@GloriousSpeed said in #3:
> As I understand it, the main point is to come up with a chess variant that hasn't been engine-bashed to death yet. Alternatively, one could also argue that castling is a contrived or unnatural-looking move since it's the only kind of move that moves 2 pieces on the same turn. Moreover, the pieces move through each other, one of them an extra space more than it would normally be allowed to move.
We already have a chess variant "that hasn't been engine-based to death yet", it's called chess 960. The problem with no castle chess is that, unlike chess960, it can and it would be engine-based to death as soon as it become more popular.
Rules like castling or en passant were added centuries ago and for good reason, it made the game better and more exciting. These rules passed the test of time and in my opinion removing castling breaks the balance of the game.

@Katoh1 said in #8:
> We already have a chess variant "that hasn't been engine-based to death yet", it's called chess 960. The problem with no castle chess is that, unlike chess960, it can and it would be engine-based to death as soon as it become more popular.
> Rules like castling or en passant were added centuries ago and for good reason, it made the game better and more exciting. These rules passed the test of time and in my opinion removing castling breaks the balance of the game.

I think your first point is well-taken. There's nothing intrinsic about no-castling chess that makes it immune to engine-bashing. At most, engines are a bit behind on it at the moment because it's a relatively new variant.

As for your second point, I would say the first-move advantage would be an objective way to assess how balanced a game is. Although I'm personally not sure how the first-move advantage compares in no-castling chess.

@sheckley666 said in #5:
> I guess, the published analysis is an engine analysis, and you would have to recode the engine to tell it about the non-castlich rule. That would have been work.

No need to change anything in the engine. Standard starting position in the traditional chess is:

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

For no-castling chess it is:

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w ---- - 0 1

So it is just a matter of the UI allowing this 4 character change.