Body: <p>Assume the goal is that a certain side castles as soon as possible, and the other side wants to completely ruin castling rights.</p>
  <p>White simply plays 1.e3 2.Nf3 3.B any 4.(5.)capture an interloper 5.(6.)O-O. Black can at most play a stinker to (Q)d2, g5, h2, h4, f3, (N)e3, g3, d3, c2, f3...everything is well protected - and especially N-f6-g4-xf2, the only route that is not, does not interfere! The most clever idea might be 1...d6 2...Bh3 but then Bb5+ comes with tempo...Thus a line like 1.Nf3 e5 2.e3 Qh4 3.Nxh4 Bb4 4.Be2 Bxd2+ 5.Bxd2 e4 6.O-O or similar seems to show White can always castle in move 6 latest.</p>
  <p>For fun I tried this chess variant with our kiddies (when they &quot;forgot&quot; to castle in their games again). Jury is still out, but I'm fairly sure at least White can permanently put a cork to long castling by Qa4 and Qxa7, if necessary exchanging defenders Nc6 and Bc5.</p>
  <p>It will be hard to give a definite &quot;castle!&quot; or &quot;no castle!&quot; verdict but in principle a problem chess program is able to check &quot;castling in n&quot; as stipulation. (The time needed will be looooong, though...)</p>
  <p>Addendum: Popeye/Olive affirms that with the somewhat unintuitive 1.Nh3! 2.g3! (believe or not, 1.g4! also works), White can always castle in 5 moves. (On Nf6/Nh6, of course 2.e3/e4! must follow.) Conversely, at least 1.e4 only delays Black's short castling but can't hinder it (move 7) after only 1...Nh6! (6 minutes solving time).</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-11-04T09:38:45.970Z
Comments.Text: Can't Black defend against the Qa4-Qxa7 anti-Q-side-castle plan with the simple ...a6 ?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-11-04T11:09:46.267Z
Comments.Text: He can, but White has reserves for that either: b4-b5, e4+Bxa6...The pawn is well protected there, but I bet White invades on the opening b line much faster than Black can free the 8th.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Hauke Reddmann
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-11-04T20:54:12.793Z
Comments.Text: @HaukeReddmann A similar question was asked months ago: https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/32173/is-there-a-forced-win-in-castlechess
Comments.UserDisplayName: Rewan Demontay
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-11-05T10:18:01.890Z
Comments.Text: @RewanDemontay: THX for the info, no wonder I overlooked that one. (Do we have a merge feature?)
Comments.UserDisplayName: Hauke Reddmann
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-11-05T13:36:11.463Z
Comments.Text: @HaukeReddmann Merging is only for when useful answers exist in the duplicate. Instead, you can vote to close your own question as a duplicate (I did so once).
Comments.UserDisplayName: Rewan Demontay
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2021-11-05T14:50:54.313Z
Comments.Text: Methinks mine is a bit broader (and more precise, even suggestion a path to an answer) so I let it stand for now. I can always let it soft-close (sediment so far down that noone ever looks at it again :-)
Comments.UserDisplayName: Hauke Reddmann
Tags: <chess-variants><castling>
Title: Unhinderable long/short castling by White/Black
ThreadText: # Unhinderable long/short castling by White/Black
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2021-11-04)
  
  Assume the goal is that a certain side castles as soon as possible, and the other side wants to completely ruin castling rights.
  
  White simply plays 1.e3 2.Nf3 3.B any 4.(5.)capture an interloper 5.(6.)O-O. Black can at most play a stinker to (Q)d2, g5, h2, h4, f3, (N)e3, g3, d3, c2, f3...everything is well protected - and especially N-f6-g4-xf2, the only route that is not, does not interfere! The most clever idea might be 1...d6 2...Bh3 but then Bb5+ comes with tempo...Thus a line like 1.Nf3 e5 2.e3 Qh4 3.Nxh4 Bb4 4.Be2 Bxd2+ 5.Bxd2 e4 6.O-O or similar seems to show White can always castle in move 6 latest.
  
  For fun I tried this chess variant with our kiddies (when they "forgot" to castle in their games again). Jury is still out, but I'm fairly sure at least White can permanently put a cork to long castling by Qa4 and Qxa7, if necessary exchanging defenders Nc6 and Bc5.
  
  It will be hard to give a definite "castle!" or "no castle!" verdict but in principle a problem chess program is able to check "castling in n" as stipulation. (The time needed will be looooong, though...)
  
  Addendum: Popeye/Olive affirms that with the somewhat unintuitive 1.Nh3! 2.g3! (believe or not, 1.g4! also works), White can always castle in 5 moves. (On Nf6/Nh6, of course 2.e3/e4! must follow.) Conversely, at least 1.e4 only delays Black's short castling but can't hinder it (move 7) after only 1...Nh6! (6 minutes solving time).
  
  **Tags:** chess-variants, castling
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: Can't Black defend against the Qa4-Qxa7 anti-Q-side-castle plan with the simple ...a6 ?  
  > **username_0**: He can, but White has reserves for that either: b4-b5, e4+Bxa6...The pawn is well protected there, but I bet White invades on the opening b line much faster than Black can free the 8th.  
  > **username_2**: @username_0 A similar question was asked months ago: https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/32173/is-there-a-forced-win-in-castlechess  
  > **username_0**: @username_2: THX for the info, no wonder I overlooked that one. (Do we have a merge feature?)  
  > **username_2**: @username_0 Merging is only for when useful answers exist in the duplicate. Instead, you can vote to close your own question as a duplicate (I did so once).  
  > **username_0**: Methinks mine is a bit broader (and more precise, even suggestion a path to an answer) so I let it stand for now. I can always let it soft-close (sediment so far down that noone ever looks at it again :-)  
  
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  ## 0 answers
  
  