Is the “Castling” move (where the rook and King switch places) a real move in chess, or just made up?
Yes it is a real move. The king & the rook, however, do not ‘switch places’. First, there can be no other piece between the rook & the king, and you cannot currently be in check. You move your rook to the space next to the king & then jump the king over to the space on the other side of the rook. If the rook is on the king’s side of the board, then you care castling kingside, conversely, if the rook is on the queen’s side of the board, you are castling queenside. Good luck! PS I taught a 10 year old to play chess over the summer & I found that I had to check to rule book a couple of times because I just do things automatically now & it was hard for me to put into words what I was doing. So the moral of the story is that it’s always good to check an official rulebook when you’re not sure of something.
