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There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Shogi (A chess style game played in Japan). Shogi is similar to the bughouse chess variant in that captured p

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Shogi (A chess style game played in Japan). Shogi is similar to the bughouse chess variant in that captured pieces return to the board on the opponent's side. This prevents draw by insufficient material which is the real bane of Grandmaster level chess. Of course this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perfect solutions.

monsieurbanana 5y ago
There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Go. Of course, this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perf- Wait a minute, Go is perfect. If we forget about ko rules.
- antris 5y ago
  What's wrong with ko rules? I think it's a simple rule and ko fights are an interesting part of go.
  - platz 5y ago
    excepting some crazy multi step ko that is possible in theory, it never happens in practice. There is nothing wrong with ko, it adds depth to the game. maybe they dont like ko becauase they have a weakness in their play and cant take advantage of them or defend against them. if you give your opponent a lot of ko threats they will end up winning most kos.
  - tromp 5y ago
    Some ko rules only address a subset of repeating positions, and still allow for infinitely long games (sometimes ruling those as a no-result requiring the game to be played over). The so-called superko rule simply states that no previous position can be repeated, which seems preferable.
- mwattsun 5y ago
  I was really impressed by "AlphaGo - The Movie", despite not knowing much about Go, because the way they told the story, people from the Asian countries were so sure their champion would win a Go tournament against a computer, that were stunned into a new consciousness about artificial intelligence when the computer won. This started an arms race in AI is what I gather. Edit: Full movie for free on YouTube: AlphaGo - The Movie | Full award-winning documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y
  - tasuki 5y ago
    I'm from Europe and was also sure the human would win. The only thing that prevented me from losing a bunch of money on prediction markets was logistics.
  - antris 5y ago
    That's a great documentary in general. Recommended for everyone :)
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago
  Respectfully disagree.
vikingerik 5y ago
There's more than one way to address the problem of draw death besides bughousing captured pieces. Other win conditions are sometimes proposed - something like your king reaching the enemy king's starting square or back rank. Or count stalemate as either a win or some fraction between 0.5 and 1 for the side that inflicted it. Or do the same for draw by insufficient material (bishop or knight) for the superior side. (I'm not advocating for any of these in particular. Although that's the problem - even if everyone agreed that we should add some kind of win or scoring condition, we'd never get a majority to agree on one solution.)
- TylerE 5y ago
  What I've always thought would be the most intriguing way would be auction Armageddon. So, in Armageddon, there are no draws (Well, technically they are, but a draw is a win for black). In compensation, white gets extra time. So AUCTION Armageddon would have the players bidding for how much less time they'd be willing to have to play as black.
discardable_dan 5y ago
I can't tell if this is satire. Draws by insufficient material almost never occur in Grandmaster chess. I have not seen a single grandmaster game end this way in a year of watching top-level chess games daily. If you inspect all of the dozens of draws in this world's Tata Steel, which included ~300 GM-level games, you won't find a single that ends this way.
- mlyle 5y ago
  In addition to what my sibling comment says-- there's a whole lot of draws by agreement because the position is one that everyone knows becomes draws by insufficient material.
  - BearsAreCool 5y ago
    While this is slightly nitpicky, from what I gather many of those draws are because neither side can make progress against the opponent. These are positions where in order for the game to move "forward" both sides would need to individually choose to weaken their position, leaving them playing non-moves until triggering threefold repetition or agreeing to a draw.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      > These are positions where in order for the game to move "forward" both sides would need to individually choose to weaken their position, leaving them playing non-moves until triggering threefold repetition or agreeing to a draw. Sure, but there's also a whole lot of draws where insufficient material is inevitable. E.g. pawn vs nothing, where the king cannot reach the pawn to defend. And there's also draws where the only move "forward" doesn't weaken the position, but lead towards an end of insufficient material. E.g. most situations pawn vs. bishop.
- tehnub 5y ago
  >If you inspect all of the dozens of draws in this world's Tata Steel, which included ~300 GM-level games, you won't find a single that ends this way. Here's one: https://www.chess.com/events/2022-tata-steel-chess-tournament-masters/05/Esipenko_Andrey-Caruana_Fabiano https://www.chess.com/events/2022-tata-steel-chess-tournamen... Draws by insufficient material are quite common, but I wouldn't call them the bane of modern chess, or anything close to that.
light_hue_1 5y ago
Top-level chess leads to draws because of how points are awarded, not because of the rules. Yes, sometimes you just run out of material, but much of the time draws happen because players shut down the game or agree to a draw in a position that is just too dangerous to both parties. Chess rewards draws with far too many points. If you could agree to a draw in tennis, you would see a lot of draws where players want to save their energy and don't think this match counts that much. In other sports players don't play for draws. In chess, because draws are worth so much, some players will try to draw with black and win with white. If chess were more combative players would intentionally stay away from drawish lines. Many ways to change the game have been put forward before. Including banning draws in positions that are not known to be draws from a table base, changing how many points you get for a draw (you could get less than 1/2), forbidding early draws, changing what happens if a tournament is drawn. These kinds of rule changes make a big difference. Like, 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw. Now, you can't comfortably sit as black and bank a lot of draws because you won't be able to as easily catch up. Rules for draws in tournaments are really absurd these days. A drawn classical tournament or even the world championship gets decided by rapid games. What's the point in playing classical if you win by playing rapid? The world championship is particularly problematic in this regard.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
  the draw problem isn't entirely human. computers draw something like 80% of games even with openings specifically chosen to reduced the number of draws.
  - snovv_crash 5y ago
    But it's that because we optimize the algorithms under the same ruleset? I imagine if a draw was counted as a loss to both sides, there would be a lot more aggressive plays, since just stonewalling a skilled opponent would be the same as losing.
    - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
      lc0 has had bets trained where draws are a loss. it doesn't change much

monsieurbanana 5y ago

There is only one way to fix chess and it's called Go. Of course, this isn't exactly chess anymore but like any design decision there are no perf- Wait a minute, Go is perfect. If we forget about ko rules.

antris 5y ago
What's wrong with ko rules? I think it's a simple rule and ko fights are an interesting part of go.
- platz 5y ago
  excepting some crazy multi step ko that is possible in theory, it never happens in practice. There is nothing wrong with ko, it adds depth to the game. maybe they dont like ko becauase they have a weakness in their play and cant take advantage of them or defend against them. if you give your opponent a lot of ko threats they will end up winning most kos.
- tromp 5y ago
  Some ko rules only address a subset of repeating positions, and still allow for infinitely long games (sometimes ruling those as a no-result requiring the game to be played over). The so-called superko rule simply states that no previous position can be repeated, which seems preferable.
mwattsun 5y ago
I was really impressed by "AlphaGo - The Movie", despite not knowing much about Go, because the way they told the story, people from the Asian countries were so sure their champion would win a Go tournament against a computer, that were stunned into a new consciousness about artificial intelligence when the computer won. This started an arms race in AI is what I gather. Edit: Full movie for free on YouTube: AlphaGo - The Movie | Full award-winning documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y
- tasuki 5y ago
  I'm from Europe and was also sure the human would win. The only thing that prevented me from losing a bunch of money on prediction markets was logistics.
- antris 5y ago
  That's a great documentary in general. Recommended for everyone :)
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
Respectfully disagree.

vikingerik 5y ago

There's more than one way to address the problem of draw death besides bughousing captured pieces. Other win conditions are sometimes proposed - something like your king reaching the enemy king's starting square or back rank. Or count stalemate as either a win or some fraction between 0.5 and 1 for the side that inflicted it. Or do the same for draw by insufficient material (bishop or knight) for the superior side. (I'm not advocating for any of these in particular. Although that's the problem - even if everyone agreed that we should add some kind of win or scoring condition, we'd never get a majority to agree on one solution.)

TylerE 5y ago
What I've always thought would be the most intriguing way would be auction Armageddon. So, in Armageddon, there are no draws (Well, technically they are, but a draw is a win for black). In compensation, white gets extra time. So AUCTION Armageddon would have the players bidding for how much less time they'd be willing to have to play as black.

discardable_dan 5y ago

I can't tell if this is satire. Draws by insufficient material almost never occur in Grandmaster chess. I have not seen a single grandmaster game end this way in a year of watching top-level chess games daily. If you inspect all of the dozens of draws in this world's Tata Steel, which included ~300 GM-level games, you won't find a single that ends this way.

mlyle 5y ago
In addition to what my sibling comment says-- there's a whole lot of draws by agreement because the position is one that everyone knows becomes draws by insufficient material.
- BearsAreCool 5y ago
  While this is slightly nitpicky, from what I gather many of those draws are because neither side can make progress against the opponent. These are positions where in order for the game to move "forward" both sides would need to individually choose to weaken their position, leaving them playing non-moves until triggering threefold repetition or agreeing to a draw.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > These are positions where in order for the game to move "forward" both sides would need to individually choose to weaken their position, leaving them playing non-moves until triggering threefold repetition or agreeing to a draw. Sure, but there's also a whole lot of draws where insufficient material is inevitable. E.g. pawn vs nothing, where the king cannot reach the pawn to defend. And there's also draws where the only move "forward" doesn't weaken the position, but lead towards an end of insufficient material. E.g. most situations pawn vs. bishop.
tehnub 5y ago
>If you inspect all of the dozens of draws in this world's Tata Steel, which included ~300 GM-level games, you won't find a single that ends this way. Here's one: https://www.chess.com/events/2022-tata-steel-chess-tournament-masters/05/Esipenko_Andrey-Caruana_Fabiano https://www.chess.com/events/2022-tata-steel-chess-tournamen... Draws by insufficient material are quite common, but I wouldn't call them the bane of modern chess, or anything close to that.

light_hue_1 5y ago

Top-level chess leads to draws because of how points are awarded, not because of the rules. Yes, sometimes you just run out of material, but much of the time draws happen because players shut down the game or agree to a draw in a position that is just too dangerous to both parties. Chess rewards draws with far too many points. If you could agree to a draw in tennis, you would see a lot of draws where players want to save their energy and don't think this match counts that much. In other sports players don't play for draws. In chess, because draws are worth so much, some players will try to draw with black and win with white. If chess were more combative players would intentionally stay away from drawish lines. Many ways to change the game have been put forward before. Including banning draws in positions that are not known to be draws from a table base, changing how many points you get for a draw (you could get less than 1/2), forbidding early draws, changing what happens if a tournament is drawn. These kinds of rule changes make a big difference. Like, 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw. Now, you can't comfortably sit as black and bank a lot of draws because you won't be able to as easily catch up. Rules for draws in tournaments are really absurd these days. A drawn classical tournament or even the world championship gets decided by rapid games. What's the point in playing classical if you win by playing rapid? The world championship is particularly problematic in this regard.

adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
the draw problem isn't entirely human. computers draw something like 80% of games even with openings specifically chosen to reduced the number of draws.
- snovv_crash 5y ago
  But it's that because we optimize the algorithms under the same ruleset? I imagine if a draw was counted as a loss to both sides, there would be a lot more aggressive plays, since just stonewalling a skilled opponent would be the same as losing.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    lc0 has had bets trained where draws are a loss. it doesn't change much