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Extremely strong disagree with this[1], and the obvious question that arises is what would you do if a side is in stalemate and there isn't a stalemate rule? Wo

Extremely strong disagree with this[1], and the obvious question that arises is what would you do if a side is in stalemate and there isn't a stalemate rule? Would the other side win? Would the stalemated side pass? Neither seems at all satisfactory. The non-castling variant was invented by Vladimir Kramnik[2] explored by Deep Mind not on a whim but specifically as part of Vlad's exploration of whether this chess variant would help to revitalise the game given how computer evaluation has affected theory.[3] There were also a couple of no-castling tournaments played, but like chess960[4], opinions were very much divided about whether or not it was actually any kind of improvement. [1] Even though I pretty much always fall into stalemate traps in blitz. [2] Former world champion and lately old guy shouting at clouds about cheating [3] https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-castling-chess-kramnik-alphazero https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-castling-chess-kramnik... [4] https://lichess.org/variant/chess960 https://lichess.org/variant/chess960

yellowapple 3y ago
> what would you do if a side is in stalemate and there isn't a stalemate rule? The game keeps going until one side gets too tired and gives up (or makes a mistake that breaks the stalemate). Another idea would be a "Fortnite rule": after $X turns, the outermost edge of the board kills any pieces left in it (or becomes "the storm" in Fortnite parlance); repeat every $X turns until someone's forced into checkmate because there's only a 2×2 square left and nowhere else for the kings to go except within each others' attack range.
- seanhunter 3y ago
  What do you mean the game keeps on going? One side has to move but has no legal moves. That's what I was asking - do they get to "pass" and the other side gets to move? This is how it works in the game of go for instance. In chess that would be more or less equivalent to the non-stalemated player winning, because in many stalemate positions if you had an extra move you could checkmate. The stalemate rule adds something that the attacking player has to keep in mind and gives the defending player something to shoot for - lots of creative and tricky play arises from this, with IM Eric Rosen being the most famous exponent[1] so much so that he now has a particular type of stalemate trap named after him.[2] I'm not seriously entertaining your Fortnite rule. That is such a radical departure from the game of chess as not to be the same at all, so you could have that as a chess variant or whatever but it's fundamentally a different game. [1] https://youtu.be/YB_LLivPlY8?si=dWl2bEAEeRmzhBiC https://youtu.be/YB_LLivPlY8?si=dWl2bEAEeRmzhBiC [2] Defending king in the corner with the opposing queen a knight's move away and no other legal moves for the defender. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/the-rosen-trap-in-action https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/the-rosen-tra...
  - eru 3y ago
    > What do you mean the game keeps on going? One side has to move but has no legal moves. As said elsewhere, I would suggest removing rules against putting yourself in check. > The stalemate rule adds something that the attacking player has to keep in mind and gives the defending player something to shoot for - lots of creative and tricky play arises from this, with IM Eric Rosen being the most famous exponent[1] so much so that he now has a particular type of stalemate trap named after him.[2] That's why I was careful in saying that the proposed change would make the rules more elegant, less clunky. I did not say anything about this making chess a better game. Sometimes adding weird corner cases to your rules can make the game better. Just look at all the weird rules that you can find in Skat or Doppelkopf. (Though Mü is an example of a game with much cleaner rules that captures a similar spirit.)
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
      But who cares if the rules themselves are more elegant if the game they describe is different and worse because of it? It's like you introduced a bug in refactoring and are insisting on the change because the code looks nicer now.
      - eru 3y ago
        Yes, you are right that this is only an intellectual exercise. (Btw, it's quite popular in the Go world to reformulate the ancient clunky rules of Go into a more modern, mathematical version that might or might not have small differences in gameplay.) However, I don't actually think that removing check rules make chess worse. But that's subject to experiment. See https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.04374.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.04374.pdf for exactly such experiments.
  - Detrytus 3y ago
    I do not get this Rosen Trap example you linked to... It's an easy win for blacks, just move the rook to 8th row instead of moving the pawn and it's checkmate. The pawn move seems kind of random, as if it was played by a child.
- blharr 3y ago
  In that case the stalemated player has no moves. So you can't keep playing
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    Well then whomever's forced into check would be the loser, then.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  > forced into checkmate because there's only a 2×2 square left and nowhere else for the kings to go except within each others' attack range. If the only two pieces left are kings, that is a stalemate. It is not even a legal move for two kings to come within one square of each other.
eru 3y ago
Sorry, when I was talking about the stalemate rule, I meant the rule that declares that the game is a draw, if the only move you can make is putting yourself into check. I was not talking about the rule that handles games that do not progress. (Though I would perhaps replace that rule with one that just forbids repeating board states, but that was besides the point here.) So to make chess more elegant in how the rules are formulated (but probably not a better game, mind you), I would suggest removing all special rules around check and checkmate. Just replace it with the rule that you lose when your king gets captured (and obviously, keep Zugzwang). Sorry, I was not clear that I also wanted to remove special handling of check and checkmate. (Btw, this feels very similar to the rules against self-sacrifice in Go.)
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  This would make the game less elegant, in my view. There are too many endgames that are just trivially winning if you make stalemate a win for the stalemating player. Stalemate mostly just makes the game more interesting when otherwise the position would be completely uninteresting.
  - ric2b 3y ago
    That would just result in earlier resignations so that both players could get back to a more interesting game.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
      No, you're fundamentally changing the game, not when people resign. If stalemate is a win, almost any king and pawn vs king position is a win, which means almost every rook or bishop ending up a pawn is a win, which means it's incredibly easy to trade into a winning endgame from the middle game. Now the middle game is less interesting, because taking any kind of risk is never worth it. Which in turn makes only the most boring openings viable. Now every game is boring. Also, in tournament play, finishing your game early just means you have to wait longer until the next round, even in a round robin event. Because chess tournaments pretty much never start a round until the previous round is completely over. Not since adjournments stopped being a thing.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
> what would you do if a side is in stalemate Then that side loses. If they can't move, it's because any move would put them in check and therefore captured next turn. If they're in that position, they've obviously lost. Passing makes no sense since it contradicts the rule that says chess players must always make a move during their turns. There is no contradiction with stalemates: since they must make a move and any move puts the king in check, it is hopeless and they lose. > Neither seems at all satisfactory. Can't be worse than drawing a game because the clearly beaten opponent can't legally move into a check. This is an actual strategy. Refuse to resign and try to get the opponent to blunder his pieces into a stalemate in the end game thereby drawing the game. It's asinine but sometimes it actually works, especially at my noobish level.

yellowapple 3y ago

> what would you do if a side is in stalemate and there isn't a stalemate rule? The game keeps going until one side gets too tired and gives up (or makes a mistake that breaks the stalemate). Another idea would be a "Fortnite rule": after $X turns, the outermost edge of the board kills any pieces left in it (or becomes "the storm" in Fortnite parlance); repeat every $X turns until someone's forced into checkmate because there's only a 2×2 square left and nowhere else for the kings to go except within each others' attack range.

seanhunter 3y ago
What do you mean the game keeps on going? One side has to move but has no legal moves. That's what I was asking - do they get to "pass" and the other side gets to move? This is how it works in the game of go for instance. In chess that would be more or less equivalent to the non-stalemated player winning, because in many stalemate positions if you had an extra move you could checkmate. The stalemate rule adds something that the attacking player has to keep in mind and gives the defending player something to shoot for - lots of creative and tricky play arises from this, with IM Eric Rosen being the most famous exponent[1] so much so that he now has a particular type of stalemate trap named after him.[2] I'm not seriously entertaining your Fortnite rule. That is such a radical departure from the game of chess as not to be the same at all, so you could have that as a chess variant or whatever but it's fundamentally a different game. [1] https://youtu.be/YB_LLivPlY8?si=dWl2bEAEeRmzhBiC https://youtu.be/YB_LLivPlY8?si=dWl2bEAEeRmzhBiC [2] Defending king in the corner with the opposing queen a knight's move away and no other legal moves for the defender. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/the-rosen-trap-in-action https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/the-rosen-tra...
- eru 3y ago
  > What do you mean the game keeps on going? One side has to move but has no legal moves. As said elsewhere, I would suggest removing rules against putting yourself in check. > The stalemate rule adds something that the attacking player has to keep in mind and gives the defending player something to shoot for - lots of creative and tricky play arises from this, with IM Eric Rosen being the most famous exponent[1] so much so that he now has a particular type of stalemate trap named after him.[2] That's why I was careful in saying that the proposed change would make the rules more elegant, less clunky. I did not say anything about this making chess a better game. Sometimes adding weird corner cases to your rules can make the game better. Just look at all the weird rules that you can find in Skat or Doppelkopf. (Though Mü is an example of a game with much cleaner rules that captures a similar spirit.)
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    But who cares if the rules themselves are more elegant if the game they describe is different and worse because of it? It's like you introduced a bug in refactoring and are insisting on the change because the code looks nicer now.
    - eru 3y ago
      Yes, you are right that this is only an intellectual exercise. (Btw, it's quite popular in the Go world to reformulate the ancient clunky rules of Go into a more modern, mathematical version that might or might not have small differences in gameplay.) However, I don't actually think that removing check rules make chess worse. But that's subject to experiment. See https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.04374.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.04374.pdf for exactly such experiments.
- Detrytus 3y ago
  I do not get this Rosen Trap example you linked to... It's an easy win for blacks, just move the rook to 8th row instead of moving the pawn and it's checkmate. The pawn move seems kind of random, as if it was played by a child.
blharr 3y ago
In that case the stalemated player has no moves. So you can't keep playing
- yellowapple 3y ago
  Well then whomever's forced into check would be the loser, then.
tsimionescu 3y ago
> forced into checkmate because there's only a 2×2 square left and nowhere else for the kings to go except within each others' attack range. If the only two pieces left are kings, that is a stalemate. It is not even a legal move for two kings to come within one square of each other.

eru 3y ago

Sorry, when I was talking about the stalemate rule, I meant the rule that declares that the game is a draw, if the only move you can make is putting yourself into check. I was not talking about the rule that handles games that do not progress. (Though I would perhaps replace that rule with one that just forbids repeating board states, but that was besides the point here.) So to make chess more elegant in how the rules are formulated (but probably not a better game, mind you), I would suggest removing all special rules around check and checkmate. Just replace it with the rule that you lose when your king gets captured (and obviously, keep Zugzwang). Sorry, I was not clear that I also wanted to remove special handling of check and checkmate. (Btw, this feels very similar to the rules against self-sacrifice in Go.)

mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
This would make the game less elegant, in my view. There are too many endgames that are just trivially winning if you make stalemate a win for the stalemating player. Stalemate mostly just makes the game more interesting when otherwise the position would be completely uninteresting.
- ric2b 3y ago
  That would just result in earlier resignations so that both players could get back to a more interesting game.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    No, you're fundamentally changing the game, not when people resign. If stalemate is a win, almost any king and pawn vs king position is a win, which means almost every rook or bishop ending up a pawn is a win, which means it's incredibly easy to trade into a winning endgame from the middle game. Now the middle game is less interesting, because taking any kind of risk is never worth it. Which in turn makes only the most boring openings viable. Now every game is boring. Also, in tournament play, finishing your game early just means you have to wait longer until the next round, even in a round robin event. Because chess tournaments pretty much never start a round until the previous round is completely over. Not since adjournments stopped being a thing.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

> what would you do if a side is in stalemate Then that side loses. If they can't move, it's because any move would put them in check and therefore captured next turn. If they're in that position, they've obviously lost. Passing makes no sense since it contradicts the rule that says chess players must always make a move during their turns. There is no contradiction with stalemates: since they must make a move and any move puts the king in check, it is hopeless and they lose. > Neither seems at all satisfactory. Can't be worse than drawing a game because the clearly beaten opponent can't legally move into a check. This is an actual strategy. Refuse to resign and try to get the opponent to blunder his pieces into a stalemate in the end game thereby drawing the game. It's asinine but sometimes it actually works, especially at my noobish level.