Chess is round based, when one player is out of legal moves, what kind of illegal moves should he be able to do? Teleport pieces to checkmate you? Draw seems fair enough.
That is a good and logical point, but does anyone know anything about the history of it? Just curious.
@INeedABetterUsername said in #12:
> That is a good and logical point, but does anyone know anything about the history of it? Just curious.
@Haymarket said in #4:
> You can read about stalemate's history in wikipedia:
> en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate
—> „History of the stalemate rule“
@INeedABetterUsername said in #8:
> Thank you!
@Rookitiki said in #11:
> Chess is round based, when one player is out of legal moves, what kind of illegal moves should he be able to do? Teleport pieces to checkmate you? Draw seems fair enough.
In International Draughts, a stalemated player losses. And International Draughts, just like many (if not all) checkers variants is round based in the same way as chess.
It doesn't follow from chess being round based that a stalemate should be a draw. Both a draw and a loss are both fine options. They just lead to different games.
Stalemate can always be avoided you just have to be smart enough when you are winning. Stalemate is basically a test for knowledge
Yes, stalemate can have different finite results, just saying continuing the game doesn’t make much sense.
What I like about the draw is that there is always something to lose until checkmate is on the board. I would be fine with stalemate being a win. It would take some spice out of converting a win and lead to some ridiculous situations, while taking some other ridiculous situations out of the game (rook perma-check runaround to dodge stalemate etc).
At this point we need positions. Those where stalemate = win feels cruel and unfair for either party. That will help with understanding the rules as they got agreed on maybe.
Edit: there’s this famous double knight perma-check draw composition, maybe there is something like that for stalemates (whatever rules were looking at).
There are also philosophical reasons.
Stalemate is when you torture the opponent so badly that he can not breathe (make a move), yet you do not kill him (catch his king). This is unnecessary suffering for the opponent, and costs you a half point. Which, in my opinion, is a generous punishment.
@INeedABetterUsername said in #12:
> That is a good and logical point, but does anyone know anything about the history of it? Just curious.
The reference I gave in #5 is a huge book that is a definitive history of chess.
You can find it in pdf format on the web.
There are 100 occurrences in the book of the word "stalemate", covering everything; including chess like games that preceded modern chess.
A quote from that book...
"From al-'Adll we learn that the Indian rules varied in two particulars from those of Baghdad. One of these variations relates to Stalemate, a situation without parallel in war, which is a consequence of the limited area of the board, and the method of play by alternate moves. The rules regarding Stalemate have varied all through the history of the game, and this old Indian rule by which the victory is given to the player whose King is stalemated, illogical as it is, reappeared in England from 1600 to about1800. In India the rule has long been replaced by other conventions."
I think it makes it exciting. The player looking for the win has to be careful!
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