My idea...

All Things Chess
1

An uncastled player should get a scoring and or rating bonus for beating a castled player. Yes? No?

2

Looking at my games, I’d say that an uncastled player is aided by being able to:

  1. lock the center and attack on whichever side seems advisable
  2. incite the opponent to sack to break open the center and once the attack is weathered win the endgame with the more centralized king
  3. incite the opponent to prepare to attack a castled position and then just avoid the attack and take advantage of the overcommitted and out of place pieces
  4. sometimes get stuck in the center and suffer a crushing defeat (oh wait, that is not an aid - oh well, that’s why the game needs to be played out)

I’d be helped by such a rule (I often tell people “castling is for wimps” and I often get away with it over the board) but I don’t see it as being feasible.

The original main line of the Benko has white being uncastled and a pawn up. Getting a scoring or rating bonus on top of that would seem to be too much.

3

It is unfortunate that castling direction frequency is so lopsided in favor of castling the kings to column-g.
.
It would be more interesting if maybe 24% of all games had the two colors castling to opposite sides of the board.
The draw rate would likely be lower too.
.
I wonder which other chess960-FRC start position setup would have a better ratio of Same vs Opposite side castling?

4

Indeed. The uncastled player already has the advantage.

Bill Smythe

5

Well then, why not offer an advantage for how few pieces to develop?

Frankly - I would have some concern that any changes that leverage a new risk element into chess (thus theoretically making the game result no longer based solely on skill) may run afoul of gaming laws.

I would think that even Armageddon playoffs potentially run afoul of gaming laws.

Of course, this is all dependent upon the applicable law, etc. etc… But its not hard to imagine that if we move from a result that is theoretically 100% skill based to one that involves other elements of risk or odds, that it could raise an issue.