Well black *is* on the verge of being checkmated himself, maybe that counts for something. 

Because Black just captured a piece with his Queen.  If I'm not very good than you are terrible.

you seem to be missing my point. in order for me to capture all my opponents pieces, and manouver him into a position where he is unable to move without commiting an offence, i must have had some level of skill which has given me the advantage of the force. he has no pieces and no chance of getting me in checkmate, he has nowhere to go. we both start the game with the aim of getting a checkmate, he can no longer achieve this, and a rule that allows him to now claim a draw with a slice of luck, seems crazy, he does not want to admit defeat so uses a rule that allows him to sneak away untarnished, thats why i think it should be a forced resignation. its the sporting thing to do.

Why would he admit defeat? Through your own incompetent play you have destoyed any chance of ever checkmating him. Although you may have had "some level of skill," it wasn't enough to do the job. 

The stalemate rule is the bane of the unskillful and the delight of people who love imaginative play

What he meant was with perfect play it could be avoidable.

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.

It's interesting that none of the great players in the history of chess have ever seem to have suggested getting rid of the stalemate rule

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.

That makes sense: Lasker, Capablance, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, they're like a bunch of old-time Jocks, too dumb to put on a helmut. None of them were ever clever enough to see this enormous defect in the chess rules. But you do! Well done.

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.

but neither Fischer or Capablanca were worried about stalemates, they were worried about the uncontrolled growth of opening theory that was turning chess into a memory contest.

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.