When we say Chess, World Chess Champion, World No. 1 player, we all by default refer to Classical Chess. Typically, a nice long time control game of 5-6 hours as allotted time for specific moves.With Computers and the internet, access and availability of games is extremely high. Chess engines which analyze the games are becoming smarter day by day with great depth of the game. What is the impact of this on chess? To a level, openings are quite standard, there are clear patterns, on demand GMs can get a draw and so on.Every sport as it progresses goes through changes, variations and that evolves the sport to new levels, popularity, adoption and so on. Castling – A Special Move in Chess Castling is one of the strategic moves of chess as its main purpose is the safety of the king. In castling The king and the rook acquire a new position. There are two types of castling. Long castling and short castling. Long castling is the castling on the queen’s side and short castling is castling on the king’s side.
Short Castle and Long Castle
In the below game, White has done a short castle & black has done a long castle.
Castling – Chess Theory & Chess Games Chess theory and many of the standard openings have castling as part of the moves. Castling being a special move where you move 2 pieces in one move, one being king, changes the position on the board immensely.
New Era About Being?
GM Vladimir Kramnik surprised the entire chess world when he became a world champion in 2000 by defeating legendary GM Kasparov. Kramnik invented Berlin defense then and has contributed to chess theory significantly.
(Kramnik’s contribution to chess is immense and it continues to add new dimensions!)
Kramnik has come up with a new variant in Chess which is No-Castling Chess where the privilege of this special move is no longer available. So, here many of the old theories, openings, chess strategies become null and void. Games typically follow new ideas, new positions, new strategies, perhaps, many of that over the board during the game.
No Castling Masters with 2 great Chess World Champions, July 2021
In Dortmund, 15th & 14th world champions viz. Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik tried this new variant of chess in a four-game match, in which castling was not allowed. After four interesting games Anand won the match 2.5-1.5, and both players, the organizers in Dortmund and the chess world strongly felt that the experiment was a success. Most games had a lot of action, new positions on the board and games were hard fought till the very end.Anand and Kramnik have come a long way from early 1990s to 2008 world championship to 2021 bringing this new variant to the chess world.
Kramnik believes No-Castling chess will ensure more than 50% decisive games at top level play! Now, let’s see how this can bring new variety to classical chess? Will we see more dynamic games? In Carlsen’s words perhaps pure chess on the board. Incidentally, these 2 players won the 0020 world championship in 2008 where Anand had exciting victories with black and in both games Vishy didn’t castle. Food for thought?
A parallel to our life, we never lived during and now with pandemic impact, work from home, schools from home, businesses built online but we are aligning and adapting to it. To a level, many new things came up in the process. So, castling which was part of the chess game, if removed, can give a completely new dimension to the game.
What’s your idea? Would you like chess apps to add this variant so that you can try it out?
