Stalemate Sucks.

I agree with the op Stalemate in Shatrang (the original chess) was also a win,Westerners altered all the rules and destroyed the game :(

Since perfect play is unattainable it is hard to understand his point.  Twice Samuel Reshevsky fell into stalemate traps.  If it can happen to Reshevsky it can happen to you and me.

oh yes real imaginative play with a king left , and nowhere to go, sounds more like a get out of jail free card to me. i play to win, if i can not win i have lost. and i accept it.  i would not feel i deserved to have a draw in that situation. i should loose.  but then again i am a sporting man.

Your argument would have some sense if chess was modeled on war so closely that both players get to move simultaneously and can either choose to move or not move at any time (that's how war is). But chess isn't played that way. It is fundamental to the game that players take turns and that play continues until one player could capture the opponent's king on the next move regardless of what the opponent plays (or one player resigns or a draw is agreed, etc.).

If you want stalemate to be a win, you are asking that one of those two rules be changed, since a win on stalemate would be equivalent (in terms of stopping before capturing the king on the next move) to stopping before your opponent chooses to skip a turn and you would capture his king, or stopping before you would have chosen to make two moves in a row and capture the opponent's king.

...as Scottrf basically said already.

Says everything that needs to be said about the topic.

"If you want stalemate to be a win, you are asking that one of those two rules be changed, since a win on stalemate would be equivalent (in terms of stopping before capturing the king on the next move) to stopping before your opponent chooses to skip a turn and you would capture his king, or stopping before you would have chosen to make two moves in a row and capture the opponent's king."

sapient: What you and scott don't seem to get is it doesn't prevent those rules in any way shape or form at all. It would be a rule on condition that if the opponent has no legal moves he loses. In order for that to work those rules HAVE to stay, not change. Having a stalemate be a win WOULD NOT ALTER EITHER OF THOSE RULES. It is complete erroneous to think that it would.

He avoids it by not getting into that stalemate by playing properly before it ever gets to that moment. You can't put in a position and then say how does white avoid this. You'd have to post an entire game and ask how does white avoid this and look through the game to see where he should have played differently.

How many great football players back in the day suggested that they should wear helmets? They actually tended to say the exact opposite.

Typically anytime someone is great at something they don't want it to change as they love how it is. Yet over time things change despite this. Games change, sports change, language changes. So it isn't the best argument.

Not ture.  There are many wonderful drawing resources in endgame positions utalizing the idea of stalemate  (although I agree the idea of the draw result is counter intuitive).

This next position was from a real game, although the game itself continued with many blunders.  This shows best play as given by Dvoretsky (I trimmed down his notes).

Nimzovich suggested getting rid of the stalemate rule.  He said that chess was like a race in which you had to win by 10 seconds or it was a draw.  While Capablanca didn't suggest doing away with the stalemate rule, he had even more radical suggestion to avoid the death of chess by draw.  Capablanca  proposed adding new pieces and having a bigger board.  Fischer suggested shuffling the pieces randomly.

Fischer's main worry was the uncontrolled growth of opening theory, but that was not Capablanca's main concern.  Capablanca felt that the level of chess technique in general was so strong that you could outplay your opponent completely and still not be able to win the game.  Capablanca's solution was more stronger pieces.  Nimzovich's suggestion to make stalemate a win was in response to Capablanca's and other radical suggestions.  Nimzovich said that you didn't have to make such radical changes to chess.  All you had to do was change the stalemate rule, and there would be less draws, but you would still be playing essentially the game of chess.

My opinion about stalemate is simple: the player that moved last before the stalemate position is the one to blame for it. And also, I think that if the winning player causes the stalemate, he's not a winner at all anymore - because he caused the stalemate! It's as simple as that, and a real winner wouldn't have caused a stalemate because they look ahead so many moves that they prevent themselves from creating such a position.

So, to summarize: the player that moved last is to blame for stalemate; a winning player causing stalemate isn't a winner at all; a real winner wouldn't create stalemate because they're to good for it to happen. But then again, it's human to make mistakes!

Actually in the history of chess there have been times that stalemate was either a win for white and even for black.

You are ignoring the effect that changing the stalemate rule would have on endgame theory.  Nimzovich wasn't talking about blundering into stalemate, he was talking about positions were one side has an advantage but not enough advantage to win.   Reuben  Fine and Pal Benko studied  how changing the stalemate rule would change endame theory.  The findings can be found at the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate

At one time stalemate WAS considered a win , but an inferior, sort of cheesy way to win, and in a few countries it was considered an illegal move and not allowed. In 1807 the London Chess Club  proclaimed it a draw and the rest of the chess world followed the new rule.

I think stalemate should be considered a win too.

a final position from a game I have just finished. You really think it should be a win for black?

Yes!!

And why is that so?

If they were playing with stalemate as a mate, then Black would have clearly outplayed White.