Castling in an incorrect starting position

[Bob_McAdams]

@Smythe Dakota

@wintdoan

… It seems like the majority opinion is that under USCF rules, the player can castle by moving two squares towards the rook …

That might make sense if both sets of kings and queens were reversed. But what if only one was? That would be more dubious, I would think.

Or, what if the royalty was OK, but one player’s a-rook and b-knight were reversed? Could he still castle queenside, with the rook ending up at d1 and the knight at a1?

This is one of those “where do you draw the line?” situations.

Bill Smythe

It’s possible for TDs to waste enormous amounts of time discussing “what if” questions that they have never observed in actual play and probably never will.

That having been said, if a player were trying to castle and the king and rook were not on the squares they normally occupy at the beginning of the game, the burden of proof would be on the player to show (i.e., from a scoresheet) that he had not moved either piece (i.e., that castling was not barred by Rule 8A3). If he could, I’d be inclined to allow castling if the rook were on b1 and the c1 and d1 squares were vacant on the grounds that the rules of castling do not explicitly prohibit it. It’s weird, but the effects of Rule 11B are always somewhat weird.

Bob

[seki]

I was running a tournament for my students here at school (Non-USCF), but came across a situation where two players discovered they started the game with an incorrect initial setup (king and queen swapped), but had completed more than 10 moves in the game. Can a person still castle?

Late to the party but…I ran non-USCF rated sections so I could have some teaching moments with beginners. I want players to learn to set up the board correctly before the game. So here the teaching moment is 'No, you can’t castle because you set up the board incorrectly. If you want to castle, you have to set up the board correctly."