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Subject: Re: Castling and the 50 move rule

Author: KarinsDad

Date: 12:57:01 08/25/99

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On August 25, 1999 at 14:45:18, Bruce Moreland wrote:

[snip]
>
>It is not commonly accepted that castling is one of the moves that gets you
>closer to a winning or losing endgame.

No, but it is commonly accepted that castling is a move that gets you farther
from a loss in the opening or middlegame. I do not see a reason to differentiate
between an opening, a middlegame, and an endgame when it comes to the 50 move
rule.

Pushing a blocked pawn does not necessarily get one closer to a winning endgame,
but the rule is any pawn pushed. The same could be said of castling. It
activates a rook and hence could be considered to be more progressive than
pushing a blocked pawn.

  You can construct cases where this could
>be true, but you could also construct cases where one side is trying to force
>the other to move some other (non-pawn) piece.  *That* is not an exception to
>the 50-move rule, and neither should this be.

I was just basing this off of two possibilities: non-reversible moves (the
original post) and progressive moves (your response). Pushing a pawn is both.
Capturing a piece is both. Castling is both (obviously there are a ton of
openings where castling is just as or more progressive as most pawn pushes). Any
other moving of a piece is usually reversible and questionable as per
progression. Castling isn't.

So, it seems that the 50 move rule would be well served by adding castling (i.e.
an obscure case would be handled). And, in an extremely high percentage of
cases, a pawn push or a capture will be done with 50 moves after castling anyway
(the reason I think castling wasn't added to the 50 move rule in the first
place), so it doesn't matter the vast majority of the time.

Not a biggy.

>
>bruce

KarinsDad :)



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