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“Death” one of 5 ways to lose at Chess, according to PGN standard
- shreddit 5y agoIs “unterminated” the default value? or can a game end with the value unterminated?
- CrazyStat 5y agoYou can have a pgn for a game which is still in progress (indeed, this is common these days with major tournaments being livestreamed). "Unterminated" covers this case.
- hirundo 5y agocheckmate (n.) mid-14c., in chess, said of a king when it is in check and cannot escape it, from Old French eschec mat (Modern French échec et mat), which (with Spanish jaque y mate, Italian scacco-matto) is from Arabic shah mat "the king died" (see check (n.1)), which according to Barnhart is a misinterpretation of Persian mat "be astonished" as mata "to die," mat "he is dead." Hence Persian shah mat, if it is the ultimate source of the word, would be literally "the king is left helpless, the king is stumped." If checkmate is the death of the Shah, death is a common ending. If you also consider the other pieces it's usually a massacre.
- tropdrop 5y agoAnd "shahmaty" is what chess is called in Russian – шахматы. The expression for check and mate is shah i mat (шах и мат) also, but "shah" (шах) in Russian sounds almost exactly like the word for a step (шаг) – it sounds a bit like saying here is my final step, my final move. Growing up, I thought that's where the expression came from, and had no clue it was from Arabic! Thanks for this.
- wellthisisgreat 5y agoSo it does mean that the chess assumes that the king is never “killed”? It always stood out to me as, what I assumed to be medieval code of conduct that required not killing kings (killing queens is ok)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kzrdude 5y agoThat it is called a queen is also cultural, in Russia, Arabic speaking countries etc it is not a queen but a called a vizier or similar (a high ranking official). Looks like the Europeans changed to queens in their interpretation of chess.
- icy 5y agoHere in India I've heard both: 'queen' and sometimes, 'minister'.
- jyriand 5y agoIt's also called a "flag" in some places.
- paxys 5y agoFrom a historical lens "queen" is very odd nomenclature. The queen was certainly not the most powerful unit on a battlefield. I doubt more than a handful of prominent queens have ever been on the battlefield at all.
- AdhemarVandamme 5y agoThe queen was also historically not such a very powerful chess piece. The rule that the queen roams freely in all directions on the board was established, in her honour, when Queen Isabella I of Castile reigned.
- bsza 5y agoYou can think of it this way: the goal is to kill the king, but the last two half-moves are trivial, so they are not actually played.
- rawling 5y agoOr indeed draw, presumably.
- Closi 5y agoNope, the rules clearly state if you die you lose.
- inglor_cz 5y agoWhat if both players die at the same time?
- max-ibel 5y agoSomehow, this thought has me think of a hypothetical Agatha Christie novel.
- bcraven 5y agoThat question doesn't make any sense in a turn-based game.
- inglor_cz 5y agoSo the rule "whoever dies, loses" only applies to players whose turn it currently is? I thought it was a bit more universal.
- ivalm 5y agoYes, as they can no longer complete the current turn. Traditionally chess is played with time limits, so it makes sense that death causes the current turn, and only the current turn, player to lose.
- inglor_cz 5y agoThis is logical, but the situation when the other player dies needs some solution too. Because the living player finishes their turn and then ... what? There isn't even anyone to have a turn anymore. So for the sake of completeness, I would expect the rule to cover all deaths at the table.
- vadfa 5y agoIt's funny to think that someone put all of those values in an array of some computer code somewhere.
- spicybright 5y agoI mean hey, some rules are written in blood.
- nkrisc 5y agoAnd to think, I could have won all those matches I lost simply by killing my opponent.
- ashtonkem 5y agoWell, one of them at least. Getting another match is kind of tricky with that strategy.
- mandmandam 5y agoTell that to Death.
- iaw 5y agoExcellent reference to "The Seventh Seal" [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpKrvkussjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpKrvkussjw
- rex_lupi 5y agoTennison gambit ICBM variation or Albin countergambit nuclear powered submarine variation? https://youtu.be/E2xNlzsnPCQ https://youtu.be/E2xNlzsnPCQ
- bserge 5y agoLove that guy :D
- fallingknife 5y agoNo that would be under "rules infraction"
- lom 5y agoDoes this imply killing the opponent is a viable strategy in chess?
- MerelyMortal 5y agoTechnically yes, but it is likely not a lawful defense to murder.
- catillac 5y agoExpanding slightly to say, “…not a lawful defense to murder in the jurisdictions of which I am aware.” :)
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoNever accept an invitation to play chess in the Idaho section of Yellowstone.
- fouc 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_Death_(Yellowstone) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_Death_(Yellowstone)
- eth0up 5y agoI surmise also to exercise caution when considering en passant in some but not all american correctional facilities. And certainly don't pronounce it with a heavy french accent if you must, as it might arouse suspicion, even if your immediate opponent seems reasonable. If you do attempt this and violence seems imminent, try saying you were just kidding and gently restore the pieces to their original position.
- im3w1l 5y agoCould it be possible to exploit differences in how death is defined? What if one were to stop the heart of the opponent, and then immediately resuscitate them?
- deleted 5y ago
- xondono 5y agoNow we will start to see tournaments on certain countries with all GMs over 80y…
- ummonk 5y agoYou'd think it would be subsumed under "emergency"
- rmetzler 5y agoChess is played over (snail) mail a lot, so it’s possible the player dies a natural death and it’s not “an emergency”. I guess an emergency is more like you leave the board in a hurry.
- anderskaseorg 5y agoThe rules of chess are defined by the FIDE Handbook (https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018 https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018), not the PGN standard. Although the FIDE Handbook makes no explicit provision for the death of the player, it does say: “6.9. Except where one of Articles 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.” Therefore, a draw due to player death is also possible.
- Ekaros 5y agoMakes perfect sense. You can't win king vs king+pawn ever. As such even if opponent died in such situation you don't get win.
- Someone 5y ago> You can't win king vs king+pawn ever Pawns can get promoted, so there are are many king vs king + pawn positions that are a win for the player having the pawn.
- Ekaros 5y agoPoint was that you having only king can't win against person with king+pawn ever. Even if such player was dead and thus played to lose.
- chaorace 5y ago"death": losing player called to greater things, one hopes. It's not often that a standard written by committee leads me to ruminate on the nature of life.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- thesuperbigfrog 5y ago"called to greater things, one hopes" The player did not lose, they were recruited to St. Peter's Celestial Chess team.
- shironandon 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing
- leblancfg 5y agoI imagine if this was ever used, it would be mostly for correspondence games, which can last up to many years.
- ex3xu 5y ago"death": losing player called to greater things, one hopes. An inspiringly optimistic spiritual outlook from the PGN standard, so thank you for that. Technically, over the board one could just wait until their deceased opponent flags to claim a win, but in practice, for every occasion I'm aware of in high level tournament play, the remaining player will adjudicate the game honestly according to their evaluation of the position -- even if that means resigning out of respect for his or her opponent. See Karapanos-Zoler (2009), or Meier-Niyizibi from the 2014 Olympiad [1]. One more thing to note is that playing high level chess is in fact a strenuous activity; one grandmaster playing while wearing a heart monitor recorded burning 560 calories in two hours. [2] Top players like Carlsen or Caruana keep themselves in peak physical condition in addition to their chess preparation. And although chess players as a demographic may have certain increased predispositions to conditions like Asperger's, schizophrenia, or cardiovascular diseases (likely due to the sedentary nature of the game), I'll relay something one older player once commented to me: that he has never found a documented case of a high level tournament chess player succumbing to Alzheimer's disease. [0] https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1554879 https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1554879 [1] https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1771703 https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1771703 [2] https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmaste...
- lenzm 5y agoI don't think that's too surprising, I doubt you can play chess at a high level with early stages of Alzheimer's.
- kevinventullo 5y agoI think what they meant was that they’d never heard of someone who was at any point in time a high level chess player eventually succumbing to Alzheimer’s.
- forty 5y agoI'm not sure what to conclude of that though. Does it mean that playing high level chess lower risks of contracting Alzheimer's or does it mean that people with low Alzheimer's risks have higher chance to become high level chess players?
- usrusr 5y agoSomehow I would have hoped that the rules for death during a game of chess would be a deep dive into the succession laws of when- and wherever those rules were established.
- vardump 5y agoPlease never show these rules to a general AI and ask it to win a chess match...
- amelius 5y agoUnless you implement Asimov's first law of robotics.
- zepto 5y agoYou still have to worry about the Zeroth law.
- dogorman 5y agoThe Zeroth law, which permits a robot to harm individuals if it's good for the collective humanity, is certainly cause for concern. But it's scarcely the only concern. The three laws are riddled with holes which Asimov used as plot generators for his robot stories. Consider the Solarian formulation of the first law: Robots are not permitted to kill humans [where 'human' is defined to only include Solarian.] But even when the laws haven't been tampered with, they're still filled with holes, traps, oversights, etc. The first law states "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." This law requires a robot to intervene when a human is doing something the robot considers risky. A robot operating under this rule might grab you off your skateboard, because it judges skateboarding to be risky and is required to take action to prevent that possible harm ("A robot may not [...] through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm") That inaction clause could be removed, but that introduces other problems.
- zepto 5y agoRight, imagine an army of androids rampaging through the streets snatching cigarettes and junk food out of people’s mouths. Perhaps we’d see public executions of Zuckerberg along with cigarette company executives and various figures from the military industrial complex, etc. etc.
- phonebucket 5y agoThis occurred in a game of mine. I play(ed) international correspondence chess. The games can go on for years. In one of my games, my opponent sadly passed away. The game was adjuticated to a draw nine months after we had started. I did not have much personal connection with my opponent or interaction beyond our moves and an initial greeting, but it was obviously an extremely sad way for the game to end. Edit: the termination string in my game was actually that of a draw by adjudication, but I do want to make it clear that a death during a chess game is not as uncommon as one might expect.
- Aulig 5y agoIm not familiar with chess - why do some games last that long? Or was it multiple games?
- phonebucket 5y agoIt’s one game that lasts so long. This was traditionally played by players exchanging moves via letters sent by post. Naturally people use the internet more these days, but with a lot of time allowed between moves to keep the slow pace of correspondence chess. Allowing this amount of time between moves completely changes the character of the game. There’s ample time of deep analysis and research. There’s more incentive to leave the beaten track if you need to push for a win. It’s an extremely different game to over-the-board chess.
- kgwgk 5y ago> Allowing this amount of time between moves completely changes the character of the game. There’s ample time of deep analysis and research. It can also end in chaos: https://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html https://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html
- Aulig 5y agoOh interesting, thanks for the explanation!
- noshaker 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Tommah 5y agoYears ago, I read a tongue-in-cheek list of tips on how to win at chess. One of them said, "Never resign. There's always a chance that your opponent will drop dead before he can checkmate you."
- manquer 5y agoIn somewhat serious play and definitely professional play it would be considered bad manners to not resign a obviously lost position, and also kind of insulting to the opponent in not accepting he can win such a obvious position and making them play it over the board.
- tzs 5y ago> "death": losing player called to greater things, one hopes. What if the position is such that your opponent's death does not prevent them from completing the game? For example, it is your move, you are in check, the only way to get out of check is by capturing the checking piece, and the only way to capture the checking piece will stalemate your opponent. Your opponent then dies. In that position arguably the death of the opponent is irrelevant because there are no circumstances under which they need to take any further action. If you do not make any further moves your flag will fall and that ends the game. A dead opponent cannot call your flag, but the arbiter can. Whether flag fall is a loss or draw for you depends on whether or not your opponent could theoretically checkmate you. If you do make your move and hit your clock, that produces a stalemate on the board which immediately ends the game. In all cases in this scenario the game ends in either a draw or loss for you with no further action required on the part of your opponent. I think that in this case it would make sense to record termination as "normal" as the death of your opponent was almost certainly irrelevant to the outcome--it is just an interesting bit of trivia about the game. (I say "almost certainly" because there is one way your opponent could have affected the outcome if they had not died--they might have resigned before you made your move).
- manquer 5y agoThis makes me think can I continue to play after I die? Or Do I automatically forfeit the game because I died ? I mea I could setup my next moves and kind of play the game from the grave especially in some positions of strength it doesn't even matter what the opponent plays ?
- animal531 5y agoTalking of death, I wonder how many chess pieces have "died" in all the games that have every been played?
- SergeAx 5y agoBecause chess can be played asynchronously, by snail mail for example.