4 ms·

> Chess is way older than a few centuries, so why do the extra rules sidle in and when? Not exactly what you were asking, but you may be shocked to learn that

> Chess is way older than a few centuries, so why do the extra rules sidle in and when? Not exactly what you were asking, but you may be shocked to learn that Chess has had two significant patches very recently - namely clarifying the rules to prevent promoting a pawn to an enemy piece (sometimes causing a smothered mate), and to prevent castling with a pawn promoted to a rook on the 8th rank (annotated humourously as 0-0-0-0-0-0!!). These patches were seemingly implemented in the late 19th century and 1970s respectively, although it's surprisingly hard to find out precisely when.

btilly 5y ago
Those are obscure. "White goes first" was established in the second half of the 1800s!
- sellyme 5y ago
  > Those are obscure. Obscure, but also completely to do with how the pieces on the board can actually move, which I bet most people would have suspected that we worked out a few centuries ago. The decision of who goes first doesn't really matter, it's a purely aesthetic choice. Similarly there's a lot of regulatory changes to this day around things better described as "playing conditions". But banning 0-0-0-0-0-0 is fundamentally the same category of change as saying "oh and also the queen can move like a knight now", which seems like an absolutely ridiculous thing to have still been refining in the 1970s.
  - esrauch 5y ago
    There's no way they would have allowed 0-0-0-0-0-0 or "promote to opposite color piece" in a real game if GMs tried it in 1965. It's only ambiguous wording of the rules that was fixed in 1970, and not actually a capability of pieces.
    - sellyme 5y ago
      > It's only ambiguous wording of the rules There was nothing ambiguous about it. There was no possible interpretation of the rules that would have prevented those moves.
      - esrauch 5y ago
        IRL games don't blindly execute the rules like video game code: in rare cases it's possible for the rules are poorly worded in a way that would allow something stupid, and yet that wouldn't be actually permitted play by any reasonable player or arbiter. It's happened several times in MtG tournament history for example, where some mechanism was so clearly against the intended rules that the judges just didn't allow it even though it would have worked as a strict reading of the rules (nonsense about actions "between turns" and I recall Yawgs Will exiling as a triggered effect both just getting shut down by judges). The two things you mention are solely gags for funny chess puzzles about what is an obvious oversight in some specific written rulesets, not actually something that would have actually been legal play.
        sellyme 5y ago
        > in rare cases it's possible for the rules are poorly worded in a way that would allow something stupid I would not describe either of the chess examples as "stupid". "silly", sure, but neither of them is really any more ridiculous than en passant is. > It's happened several times in MtG tournament history for example, where some mechanism was so clearly against the intended rules that the judges just didn't allow it I feel like it's fair to make a distinction between a game like MtG where interactions and synergies are sufficiently complex enough to make those weird edge cases requiring an arbiter an inevitability, and chess, a game that's surely simple enough that it's reasonable to expect the rules to cover all on-board actions. That said, if you have any specific examples here I'd love to hear them. I know of some absolutely batshit things that are technically possible in MtG, but I'm not sure I've heard of any stories of them happening in ostensibly legal tournament play. (Since we're discussing absurd rules lawyering in TCGs now, you may be interested in the legendary 3000 card Yu-Gi-Oh! deck that was once played in a tournament setting)

btilly 5y ago

Those are obscure. "White goes first" was established in the second half of the 1800s!

sellyme 5y ago
> Those are obscure. Obscure, but also completely to do with how the pieces on the board can actually move, which I bet most people would have suspected that we worked out a few centuries ago. The decision of who goes first doesn't really matter, it's a purely aesthetic choice. Similarly there's a lot of regulatory changes to this day around things better described as "playing conditions". But banning 0-0-0-0-0-0 is fundamentally the same category of change as saying "oh and also the queen can move like a knight now", which seems like an absolutely ridiculous thing to have still been refining in the 1970s.
- esrauch 5y ago
  There's no way they would have allowed 0-0-0-0-0-0 or "promote to opposite color piece" in a real game if GMs tried it in 1965. It's only ambiguous wording of the rules that was fixed in 1970, and not actually a capability of pieces.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    > It's only ambiguous wording of the rules There was nothing ambiguous about it. There was no possible interpretation of the rules that would have prevented those moves.
    - esrauch 5y ago
      IRL games don't blindly execute the rules like video game code: in rare cases it's possible for the rules are poorly worded in a way that would allow something stupid, and yet that wouldn't be actually permitted play by any reasonable player or arbiter. It's happened several times in MtG tournament history for example, where some mechanism was so clearly against the intended rules that the judges just didn't allow it even though it would have worked as a strict reading of the rules (nonsense about actions "between turns" and I recall Yawgs Will exiling as a triggered effect both just getting shut down by judges). The two things you mention are solely gags for funny chess puzzles about what is an obvious oversight in some specific written rulesets, not actually something that would have actually been legal play.
      - sellyme 5y ago
        > in rare cases it's possible for the rules are poorly worded in a way that would allow something stupid I would not describe either of the chess examples as "stupid". "silly", sure, but neither of them is really any more ridiculous than en passant is. > It's happened several times in MtG tournament history for example, where some mechanism was so clearly against the intended rules that the judges just didn't allow it I feel like it's fair to make a distinction between a game like MtG where interactions and synergies are sufficiently complex enough to make those weird edge cases requiring an arbiter an inevitability, and chess, a game that's surely simple enough that it's reasonable to expect the rules to cover all on-board actions. That said, if you have any specific examples here I'd love to hear them. I know of some absolutely batshit things that are technically possible in MtG, but I'm not sure I've heard of any stories of them happening in ostensibly legal tournament play. (Since we're discussing absurd rules lawyering in TCGs now, you may be interested in the legendary 3000 card Yu-Gi-Oh! deck that was once played in a tournament setting)