I was playing a game of chess online yesterday. I had a king and bishop and my opponent had a king, knight, rook, and three pawns when he ran out of time. The game was decided a draw because I didn’t have mating material, but I had mating material. I could have mated him with my bishop. Why is this considered a draw?
You can’t mate with just a king and a bishop. You would need at least two bishops to be able to force mate.
I don’t need to be able to force a mate, I need to have mating material. A king and h pawn can’t force a mate against a king, but it’s still mating material.
Yes, it does.
Ahem, having a single bishop is useless because it’s limited to one colour on the board. The enemy king can simply stay on the other colour and you’ll never be able to force him off it. Even if he cooperated and ran into a corner and you checked him with your bishop, he has two possible escape squares and your single king can’t cover them both.
Two knights and a king could mate a single king if he cooperates by cornering himself, but there is no way to force him to do so. Only with two bishops or more can the enemy king be pushed into a trap.
A pawn can potentially be promoted to queen or rook, which would be mating material. I don’t understand the distinction you’re drawing. If you can’t force mate, you can’t mate, period.
If black has a king on h8 and bihops on h7 and g8 and I have a king on e2 and a bishop on d5, I have mate. I don’t even know why I dignified a responce. Can someone who knows what they’re talking about give some insight? I only need mating material, not be able to force one…
Well, it’s different if you’re talking about a smothered(-ish) mate, but I don’t know of any regulating body that would let someone record a win on the off chance that the player with greater material might have blundered into trapping himself. Besides, the defense is too obvious - simply scatter your pieces and screw around for fifty moves.
I’d guess that you ran into a situation that struck you as unfair and were hoping we’d jump to your defense. I kinda doubt anyone will, though it is a potentially interesting question. I can imagine an abuse where a player with better material sees that he’s one move away from a smothered mate and lets his clock run down on purpose. If you’re in check at the moment your time ends, does that count as a loss?
Huh. Having skimmed FIDE rules, article 6, he should have lost when his clock ran out, regardless of who had what material.
So another words, you aren’t sure?
I’ve seen bigger blunders before…
I think you already have your answer - your opponent should have lost, because he or she ran out of time. I’ve never heard of any formal rules about “mating material”. Perhaps you’d like to tell us which chess site it was so that we can look at their house rules.
Mating material means material sufficient to force a win. You did not have that, unless you were in a position to mate immediately.
I’ve heard of a rule like this for speed chess (five-minute chess or whatever); a player exhausting his time draws if the oppo has only bare King, or King and one minor piece. The assumption, I guess, is that you could misplay versus King and Rook’s pawn (simple though the ending is) but you would have to cooperate to an unrealistic extent to lose to King and Knight or King and Bishop.
Here’s a good link on the subject. http://www.e4ec.org/immr.html Even this one notes that, “In time controlled games it is possible, that if the drawn position is not recognized, one of the players runs out of time and loses the game by time forfeit. Remember, the game is drawn, but the draw is not recognized.”
Apparently the rule is different under USCF rules:
http://www.uschess.org/tds/clockrules.php
and
(Emphasis added).
http://www.swchess.com/sce/tourney/tsc2006/rules.htm; http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068984
I coached chess at my high school for six years, and it’s taken me some time to get over the IHSA (Illinois High School Association) chess rules regarding time. I always felt that time was a legitimate way to win, but I am in the minority if IHSA is any indication. In fact, when a college friend and I used to play, if someone’s flag dropped, his opponent could claim the win. But in the IHSA circuit, it’s a draw if the guy who still has time on his clock lacks mating material. And a single bishop and king have always been considered insufficient mating material. I understand the concept of the other guy’s pieces helping to trap him so that the lone bishop can force mate, but no one I’ve encountered takes that into consideration when playing. Chess books will also list a lone bishop as insufficient mating material.
A part of me still thinks it’s unfair that copperwindow doesn’t get the win for his game. He may have had only a bishop remaining while his opponent had superior material, but copperwindow likely got into that situation because he used less time and his opponent used more. Bryan Ekers found rules that support this, too, so it seems the answer to the OP may be “It depends,” as in, it depends upon which rules you use.
As a side note—to drive anyone who likes to win on time really crazy—the IHSA chess rules now allow for time delay, thanks to the prevalence of electronic clocks. Now, when a player moves and hits the clock, there is a delay (typically one-to-three seconds, though the time can be set to whatever the players agree upon) before the other player’s clock begins counting down. The clocks can also be set to add time after each player’s move, making it possible for the game to end with both players having more time than when the game started, though that’s not the setting used by IHSA.
And here are the USCF blitz rules which go into a lot of detail. http://www.niles-hs.k12.il.us/harkyr/ChessWebSite/Blitz-Bughouse_Tournament/USCF_2004_BLITZ_RULES.htm
I tried to think of a situation that might my earlier abuse comment, i.e. seeing that you are one or two moves away from a smothered mate, you let your clock run down on purpose, salvaging a draw. In the classic smothered mate with a single knight, the losing player can only take his extended pause on the move in whch he’d capture opponent’s queen with his queen or rook, with the knight move to follow. Even if he stalls at this point, at the moment his clock runs out, opponent has a queen and knight (and king); definitely mating material.
I believe the situation you describe here is impossible. According to this diagram h7 and g8 are the same color.
PLease correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t see how you can have your bishops in these positions.
His opponent must have promoted a pawn to a bishop :rolleyes:
I believe that KnB can force a mate vs. K, as well, but it’s not an endgame that most folks would know how to play.
And it is possible to have two bishops on the same color, just very rare (it’s probably never occured in a tournament game). It’s even possible to have nine bishops on the same color. When a pawn promotes, it’s allowed to become a bishop, even though a queen is almost always a better choice. But if that’s too improbable for you, you could replace one of the smothering pieces with a pawn or a rook. It’s still fanatically improbable without collusion, but could conceivably occur accidentally (with very inexperienced players).
I have to admit that it never occurred to me that a pawn would be promoted to a bishop. I guess you learn something new every day.
Sorry guys, but after 19 posts no-one has it right yet. FIDE Laws of Chess Article 6.10 says (in part): “…if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the 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, even with the most unskilled counterplay.” So whether it is possible to force mate is irrelevant - mate just needs to be possible. With the material in the OP, it is indeed possible for copperwindow’s opponent to box himself in and be checkmated by the bishop. So the OP should have been awarded the win, if the game was being played under FIDE rules (I don’t know about USCF rules). Whether this is “fair” or not is another matter. Also note that if his opponent had had, say, just a queen and a king (versus King and bishop), it should be a draw, since king and bishop could not possibly mate king and queen.