Artificial castling


In chess, artificial castling refers to a maneuver in which a king which has lost the right to castle achieves a castled position in several normal moves, instead of the one special move.

Examples

After the following common sequence of moves:
White sees that if he recaptures with 5.Nxe4, Black responds with 5...d5, forking knight and bishop and winning back the piece. In that case, Black has not won material, but has destroyed White's center. Instead of allowing d5, White hopes to cause trouble for Black by returning the piece while depriving him of the right to castle. However, Black can easily castle artificially, for example:
White castles "naturally".
Black begins castling artificially.
Black has achieved a normal castled position, but in several moves. The absence of any pawns in the center indicates that king safety is of particular importance in this position. Black's development lags slightly, but he also possesses the bishop pair and a queenside pawn majority, so his position is at least equal.


In an even more common opening, White uses the g2-square in an artificial castle maneuver to safeguard his king after an exchange of bishops on f1 precludes castling normally:

Praxis

The following game between Jonathan Mestel and Sergey Makarichev played in Hastings 1979 features yet another way to artificially castle:
A unique and even humorous artificial castling took place in the game Heidenfeld–Hecht, played in the Nice Chess Olympiad 1974: