THE ART OF (UN)CASTLING

All of us know about ‘Castling’. But have you ever heard about ‘Uncastling’? Well now you have.  

A delightful little chess problem composed by Gerald F. Anderson in 1917 demonstrates the uses of both castling and uncastling.

  WHITE TO PLAY & MATE IN 4 MOVES

If you want to uncastle, you have to castle first….

1.   0-0

Black has only one move.

1.      …        Kh4

White now starts the process of ‘uncastling’ which limits black to only moves. Don’t forget that while castling takes only one move, it takes at least three moves to ‘uncastle’. That’s how we arrive at our mate in four.

2.      Kf2        g3+

3.      Ke1       g4

Finally to complete the checkmate (& to complete the uncastling)

4.      Rh1 #

Other than the uncastling theme, the composer managed to achieve a property which is rare in chess problems. All white pieces ended up exactly where they started.

REPLAY THE MOVES

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