Just because he’s got two more pieces than you doesn’t mean you’ve been outplayed. Chess is not about counting captures. The only piece that counts is the king.
What it does is increase the burden of the win condition - you have to meet the condition of capturing the king, and it prevents players from involuntarily making moves that would lead to the capture of the king, so that you have to force them to do so. If you accept this as rules, then you must accept the stalemate rules. Conversely, if placing or leaving your king in check is no longer illegal then you have to chuck the stalemate rule, which I imagine is what happens in blitz games (not sure if they actually don’t have gotten rid of the stalemate rule there but I bet they have). I think keeping the rule that placing or leaving the king in check is illegal (and conversely keeping the stalemate rule) draws out the games more, makes them longer, allows for more strategizing, whereas in blitz, the balance is more towards having games decided by unforced errors (to borrow from tennis) on the part of the loser rather than active strategizing on the part of the winner. This works to reward strength and acumen (including having the wits about you to avoid stalemate if you can win, or create stalemate when you might lose) rather than to punish weakness and stupidity. This makes it more interesting and intellectually rewarding, to me, which would make it the ‘better game’ on that account, although YMMV.
No one in this thread or elsewhere has shown that there is a logical inconsistency in having the stalemate rule in non-blitz games. I have claimed that the stalemate rule is not arbitrary but logically follows from what is the aim of the game, which is to force capture of the king, ie checkmate. The quote below (my first post in this thread) constitutes a proof of that claim:
Right, so what you’re describing here is the way that standard chess and “capture the king” are not logically equivalent - the rule in chess that it’s illegal to place yourself in check. You may not be surprised to hear that I find this to be a strange rule too :). It does not seem natural that in a game whose goal is the capture of the king, capturing the king is illegal.
Having said that, I agree with your post. Given the rule about not placing your king in check, the checkmate and stalemate rules make sense. I also think, as you do, that these rules make standard chess a better game than “capture the king” would be.
The games don’t immediately end in a tie if one player can no longer make a legal move. That’s the curiosity of the chess rule.
The first odd rule is that you can’t make a move that puts your king into check. Why not? It’s essentially a rule that says “You can’t legally make a move that would immediately cause you to lose” Then you add a rule that says, “if your only move is an illegal move that would immediately cause you to lose, you tie”. You don’t skip your turn, you don’t lose, you tie.
It’s odd, and I assume that the rule makes chess a more competitive, enjoyable game overall, but it still is odd on an individual situation basis. It gives a player who is in a terrible spot, their only move will cause them to lose, and gives them a tie instead.
This is very different from the endless chasing type of stalemate, which is really only a stalemate out of convenience for the two players, who would probably not like to go to their graves playing out the game.
You might be interested in Shogi (Japanese game related to chess), in which both of these are true (though the bishop needs to be promoted to get the ‘sidestep’ ability, and there is only one on each side). However, there are a lot of other differences compared to chess, so it’s a markedly different game. In particular, condition #1 is nearly impossible in a game, as any captured piece can be dropped on the board, and there are few pieces with a range (indeed, the piece-dropping ability means that checkmate is often delivered by surrounding the king with mutually reinforcing pieces, rather than at range).
The fact that there exist variations involving rule changes doesn’t mean the game of chess would be improved by modifying stalemate rules. As glee has pointed out, the current game is popular precisely because of the rules and pieces it has evolved to include.
glee, I think the protestations against the stalemate rule make sense if you consider chess not in the practical sense — as a game with clearly defined rules played for its own strategic qualities — but as an abstraction, the metaphor for war that it’s often described as being.
If two armies are in combat, and one general has forced the other into a position where he is incapable of taking any action not resulting in the utter destruction of himself and his forces…it seems a bit ridiculous to imagine them both saying, “Well, that’s a tie, then,” and calling it a day, when the former general has clearly overwhelmed his opponent.
Of course, the game of chess isn’t a war or an abstract metaphor, and as you’ve argued, the rule as written makes for strategic complications that are interesting…if you’re into the mechanics of chess play. From a layman’s perspective, though, hopefully you can see where the rule seems a bit incongruous to what the game is supposedly simulating.
This is how I see it too. Checkmate is a win; in stalemate, there is no way for either player to reach checkmate, so neither wins.
A “superior position” or numerical advantage is only considered superior because it makes it easier for that player to eventually get checkmate. If he isn’t able to do that, there’s no reason why he should be the winner.
AFAICT that’s functionally equivalent to normal Chess. Isn’t it?
It’s not about the material advantage. It’s the fact that you’ve been reduced to a point where you can’t make a legal move - that’s what indicates you’ve been outplayed.
Now if somehow a situation arose where both players were unable to make a legal move, then I’d accept that neither player had outplayed the other and the natural result was a draw.
But as a general rule of games, when one player has run out of legal moves and the other player hasn’t - that second player has outplayed the first.
You guys are still just arguing “it’s a rule because it’s a rule”.
If you don’t accept the arguments you quoted, then I don’t think you’re going to get an answer that satisfies you. Your argument that a stalemated player has been outplayed is reasonable, and so is the argument that a stalemating player has failed in the aim of the game.
In the end, game rules are arbitrary anyway, so there isn’t any other underlying reason for the rules, other than they produce a game experience that people enjoy. I think a version of chess where getting stalemated is a loss would be less rich, and less enjoyable. Some people disagree, which is fine.
Historically, at different times stalemate has been treated as a win, a “half-win”, a draw, and even as a loss. In general, I think people will tend to play the one that they find most enjoyable, rather than the one where the rules make the most sense in some external sense.
I’m saying the stalemate rule follows naturally from the checkmate rule.
It’s a game. In the end, it’s always going to come down to ‘that’s the way the rules are’. If you change this rule, it would still be a game, and the rules of chess are not set in stone, they are subject to change, they have been changed, and there are types of chess in which the rules are different.
But as it is, in standard chess, this is what the rules are and there’s good reasons for that, and no good reasons against it. For one thing, the rule is not unfair, as it does not create an advantage for black or white, and the rule is known in advance. It does not create unfair outcomes unless you look at criteria that are irrelevant. You claim that there is a ‘general rule of games, when one player has run out of legal moves and the other player hasn’t - that second player has outplayed the first’. This is, of course, complete nonsense, there is no such rule and there is no reason that such a rule if it did apply to a majority of games, should apply to chess. You might just as well argue that if you allow your opponent to create a situation in which they have no legal moves, and you can’t move until they do, you’ve manoeuvered yourself into a corner, you have failed to strategize for a win, and hence a draw has been reached.
In addition to not being unfair, the stalemate rule has been shown to be consistent with the other rules of standard chess, rather than an arbitrary exception, which makes the rule easy to explain to anyone with half a brain who is interested in learning how to play chess. Finally, the rule, along with the other set of rules that it’s related to (eg the rule making it illegal to place your king in check, or to leave him there) make chess more interesting, and make the game about the winner’s strategizing, rather than the loser’s unforced error.
All of this has been argued in this thread ad nauseam. You may think that another way of playing chess could make it more interesting to you - maybe have a 10*10 board, with pieces only on the black fields, all moving diagonally. But the only way that you can say that I’m arguing ‘it’s a rule because it’s a rule’ is if you’ve actually not read any of the posts in this thread so far.
Iunno, I just came back from the pool hall, and it sort of reminds of an eight ball game where you’re getting completely dominated, but rather than concede defeat, you let your opponent take that last shot, in the hopes that you beat him on a scratch, even though you thoroughly did NOT deserve to win.
This is the same idea for. Only it’s a tie and not a win. You’re hoping for him to screw up at the finish line, and wait for him there with a huge, smug grin!
Could you or someone explain this to me?
First the end position doesn’t look like a stalemate at all. But a huge advantage for black. (This is the ending position I see, though I don’t know if this will be saved:
(ETA: It wasn’t and I don’t know how to save one.)
Second if white wants a draw in this game, it seems to me he only has to play Rd4. He then cannot be prevented from capturing both pawns on the next two moves. Black can no longer win with just a bishop.
I don’t know how to use Apronus either, but after the moves given, White’s King is on a7, Black’s Queen on d6 and Bishop on f3 (and King on h6). White, to move, is not in check but cannot move without self-check - that’s the definition of stalemate.
Second, White can’t play Rd4. If you mean 1. Rd3, then Black plays 1. … Bf3+, when 2. Rxf3, d1(Q) with an easy win, or 2. K any, d1(Q); 3. Rxd1, Bxd1 and Black queens his other pawn.
nvm
Final position here
To play devil’s advocate, I appreciate why stalemate seems odd to players at first; it does seem inconsistent. For example, if you’re in zugzwang you have to move, and if there’s mutual zugzwang; that’s not a draw. Stalemate, if you see it as a kind of zugzwang, is a special case.
But the answer to the OP is simply that the game is strategically more rich with this rule than without it. It makes endgames more interesting, and in turn, means that players have to consider more factors in the middlegame. Most chess players like this rule.
There are rules in chess that even experienced players find annoying or strange*, but stalemate isn’t really one of them.
- e.g. Draw by agreement at any time, a win on time because of the possibility of a help-mate etc