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[fen]r4k1r/1bp1bp2/2q1p1pp/p1p1P3/P1Pp1N2/1P1R1PQ1/2P2BPP/4R1K1 b - - 0 23[/fen]
Torre Repetto,Carlos - Reti,Richard 1925
After 23. Rd1-d3, Black castled long OOO. But OOO was illegal because Black’s a8 rook had already moved twice during the game. Reti as Black put his king and rook back on e8 and a8.
Now…
Given the touch move rule…
Question: Can Black proceed to castle short OO, or would OO be illegal because Black is required to move ONLY his king?
The argument is that Black’s h8 rook was not involved in the original touching of pieces, so it is too late to add the h8 rook now to the move. Adding in the h8 rook now is like half defying or defeating the touch move rule.
There are two levels to this question:
A. The actual current rule verbiage; and
B. What we feel as the spirit of the touch move principle.
Personally I could lean either way on the spirit question, although I tend to lean toward disallowing OO.
Are there differences of opinion on what the spirit of the touch move principle tend to recommend for this ruling?
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If Reti touched the king first he is allowed to castle kingside. If he touched the rook first he would have to move the rook. The rules do not say anything about castling involving touching the king and rook simultaneously, so the illegal move (queenside castling) would have to be replaced with a king move or kingside castling. I think the rules are written in such a way to take “spirit” out of this question.
The latest update to the rules support what I wrote. The King must be touched first when castling but a variation where the rook is touched first is allowed.
If the 0-0-0 move with a previously moved a-file rook was done incorrectly with K → d-file and R → e-file then the releasing of the K on the d-file (if legal) should be considered the entire move with 0-0 not an option (of course, the releasing of the K on the d-file should also be considered the entire move even if 0-0-0 would have been a legal move).