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The time format in chess changed. It used to have adjournments where the Russians had a tremendous advantage. When Fischer played Botvinnik at the Olympiad in

The time format in chess changed. It used to have adjournments where the Russians had a tremendous advantage. When Fischer played Botvinnik at the Olympiad in 1962, they adjourned. Fischer sealed his 45th move and Botvinnik gave the position to his seconds who sent it to Moscow to a room full of GMs. Botvinnik himself went to sleep and woke up to be handed a saving brilliancy. The time format also really changed in that rapid and blitz are heavily contested. Magnus and the other super GMs even play bullet. There has been some interest in FischerRandom or Chess 960. Not a rule change, but computers have democratized chess and massively improved play. A modern GM would simply crush Tal. Stockfish taught a level of accuracy that is insane. And now players learn new strategies from Alpha Zero class machines.

dragontamer 5y ago
> There has been some interest in FischerRandom or Chess 960. Do people really want to give up all of the past 100-years of opening theory? I don't think so. The #1 issue of Chess is "boring, everything's a draw". Well, good news. We can get rid of draws with "Stalemate == Black Wins. 50-move / 3-move repetition == White Wins". Very small rule change. Not only that, it keeps Stalemate-practice as a key-study for Black players. So all the skills you've gained for the past 100 years (from opening theory, to stalemate practice) remains relevant. Fischer Random / 960 is for people who want to throw away the entirety of chess opening theory. I'm sure that's a valid concern and/or criticism of chess, but I don't think its something the entire community agrees upon (after all: everyone keeps playing Chess / Shogi with exactly the same opening setup. There's something deeply cultural about keeping the setup the same for hundreds of years).
- mehwoot 5y ago
  No offense but it would need to be much more refined than what you suggest. Stalemate is pretty rare, but the 50 move / 3 move repetition is 99% of draws in chess- or at least would be the outcome if players were not allowed to agree to a draw. Nearly every single game at the top level would be a white win if all white has to do is effectively draw. Maybe instead of stalemate you meant a draw where neither side has enough material to checkmate? If you make that a black win, white would always have to push for a win.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Stalemate + Not enough material == Black win. 50 move / 3-move-repetition == White win. This proposal has been discussed in chess forums on occasion, because Armageddon (all draws == Black wins) is too much in favor of Black. Giving 50 move / 3-move-repetion to White should even the odds better, somewhere in between the current ruleset and the Armageddon ruleset.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  In computer chess, they're already changing the opening position in order to get more decisive games. I think that would be a better approach to saving classical chess than changing the winning conditions. The opening theory of the past wouldn't work with different winning conditions anyway.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > The opening theory of the past wouldn't work with different winning conditions anyway. Black is going for Stalemate right now, because its well known that Black is at a minor disadvantage against White. White is going for win. So opening theory won't change too much. It just formalizes the principle that Black will want to explicitly "draw" (by calling Stalemates a draw). ---------- Armageddon chess has demonstrated that "all draws are black-wins" is too much of an advantage however. The next best step is to take the 4 draw conditions (stalemate, insufficient material, 3-move repetition, 50-move rule) and divvy the 4-draw conditions up between black-and-white to better balance the game towards 50/50 chance.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      White is generally OK with a draw, though, and can e.g. sacrifice material for an attack or take other risks if there is a forced draw in case the attack fails.

dragontamer 5y ago

> There has been some interest in FischerRandom or Chess 960. Do people really want to give up all of the past 100-years of opening theory? I don't think so. The #1 issue of Chess is "boring, everything's a draw". Well, good news. We can get rid of draws with "Stalemate == Black Wins. 50-move / 3-move repetition == White Wins". Very small rule change. Not only that, it keeps Stalemate-practice as a key-study for Black players. So all the skills you've gained for the past 100 years (from opening theory, to stalemate practice) remains relevant. Fischer Random / 960 is for people who want to throw away the entirety of chess opening theory. I'm sure that's a valid concern and/or criticism of chess, but I don't think its something the entire community agrees upon (after all: everyone keeps playing Chess / Shogi with exactly the same opening setup. There's something deeply cultural about keeping the setup the same for hundreds of years).

mehwoot 5y ago
No offense but it would need to be much more refined than what you suggest. Stalemate is pretty rare, but the 50 move / 3 move repetition is 99% of draws in chess- or at least would be the outcome if players were not allowed to agree to a draw. Nearly every single game at the top level would be a white win if all white has to do is effectively draw. Maybe instead of stalemate you meant a draw where neither side has enough material to checkmate? If you make that a black win, white would always have to push for a win.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Stalemate + Not enough material == Black win. 50 move / 3-move-repetition == White win. This proposal has been discussed in chess forums on occasion, because Armageddon (all draws == Black wins) is too much in favor of Black. Giving 50 move / 3-move-repetion to White should even the odds better, somewhere in between the current ruleset and the Armageddon ruleset.
DarylZero 5y ago
In computer chess, they're already changing the opening position in order to get more decisive games. I think that would be a better approach to saving classical chess than changing the winning conditions. The opening theory of the past wouldn't work with different winning conditions anyway.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > The opening theory of the past wouldn't work with different winning conditions anyway. Black is going for Stalemate right now, because its well known that Black is at a minor disadvantage against White. White is going for win. So opening theory won't change too much. It just formalizes the principle that Black will want to explicitly "draw" (by calling Stalemates a draw). ---------- Armageddon chess has demonstrated that "all draws are black-wins" is too much of an advantage however. The next best step is to take the 4 draw conditions (stalemate, insufficient material, 3-move repetition, 50-move rule) and divvy the 4-draw conditions up between black-and-white to better balance the game towards 50/50 chance.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    White is generally OK with a draw, though, and can e.g. sacrifice material for an attack or take other risks if there is a forced draw in case the attack fails.