Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

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Free Castling Chess

If you had a Java-capable browser, you could play Free Castling Chess here.
Keys "s"=save "l"=load "b"=back once

You may castle, whether or not you are in check, passing over squares under attack and/or occupied squares, so long as neither king nor rook have been moved and the rook ends up on the far side of the king, not beyond the king's square.

This was the norm in Italy up into the 19th century.

Free Castling
Tim Harding on Free Castling
Italian chess
Renaissance Chess
Castling

Chess Variants

These are simple illustrations rather than strong opponents.

Bug reports? -- Thank you! Keep them coming!

Written by Ed Friedlander

WWW Page Added: Sunday, December 30, 2001