By the same token, playchess allows a player with just a knight to refuse to take your last pawn and run you out of time if they can. This is because "technically" a helpmate is possible with such material. I've never agreed with it, but such are the ways of online software-controlled blitz interfaces.

Ask Eric

You make a good point, however, it would be fun to see who could blunder first in a time scramble, and the better with the better premove technique could have a slightly higher chance of winning.

btw I'm assuming this is for live chess, not cc chess right?

this is ridiculous! seems like someone needs a good cry to let it all out.the purpose of blitz chess is TIME,not position. if there is a chance for mate, take it away. otherwise lose on time. take it like a man.

I was playing on FICS last trying to survive with just a knight. I had minutes, he mere seconds.

Whilst I would have accepted any drawoffer, he run through his time in this position:

However the game ended as a draw because "black has no material to mate." 

I thought that was strange because a helpmate is quite easy to achieve. This might be the consequense of a discussion like this one.

It leaves me to believe that if your opponent has a one move mate, with his only remaining piece (a knight), you can achieve a draw by letting your time run out.

By the way I have to agree with rawtaterz .

We have the 50 move rule, that is enough to cover useless shuffling of pieces.

In blitzgames against an unsportive opponent just be sure to have enough time left to make the last moves. Otherwise you might lose. It's as easy as that.

Adding more rules (and or positions) to claim a draw only increases the complexity and leads to other problems.

Suggestions to change rules like this are really suggestions to change the nature of the game. Currently, this is one way to win a blitz game. If you change this rule, you've altered the balance of what has to be achieved to get a draw.

1) time is a part of the game, a loss on time is a legitimate loss even with drawn material

2) there are lower level players who can still lose in these positions and therefore they should be played out

Why has your opponent not out-played you if he/she has brought about an endgame position where his/her advantage on the clock will be translated into a win? The final shuffling of pieces may not be "chess," as you define it, but that situation has been brought about by all the moves that have been made up to that point.

Every player is in the same situation: you have to always be on the watch for what sort of endgame your opponent can bring about. If you leave yourself vulnerable to an endgame that is better for your opponent, then he/she has outplayed you.

Frankly, someone can say that blitz in general is not "chess." If you agree to play blitz, you have to accept the possibilities. If you don't like that, play games with longer time limits. Essentially we seem to be arguing about trying to import into a blitz game a feature of slow games. Why not just import yourself into a longer game if it is bothersome?

ajgreen, the same problem with drawn positions happened to me several times in LiveChess. Truely a bit annoying. It made me decide, as a practical solution, to play only challenges with some extra time added per move ... like that you will never time out in such a situation.

agreed. just have time added per move as opposed to complaining that losing on time in a drawn position is somehow "not right".

can someone please explain to me why it's unsportsmanlike to win on time in a drawn game? is time not a factor in the game? why should this factor just not count in drawn situations? doesn't it count if you are winning or losing? why does a drawn position warrant this special treatment?

as mentioned previously, if a player plays a game and gets led to an unequal engame (be it on time or position or material) does not the other player deserve the win? who care's if it's a drawn position? it still took you longer to reach this drawn position then your opponent. therefore they put you at a disadvantage by their superior play and deserve the win. if you were better then you wouldn't have taken more time then them in reaching this point.

and again, simple solution: add time per move and you'll never have this issue.

What about if you look at it that way:

The position you reached is drawn or in other words equal. You needed more time than your opponent to reach or maintain an equal position. This means that he thinks faster than you and is better at chess.

But in a way I agree. I think it should be taken into account how long time control is and how big is time difference between players. Example: If the time difference is lower than a certain percentage of full time control, it's a draw. If not, they can play on until one of the players accepts a draw offer.

But then again, it can be considered better player's fault that he didn't use his extra time to get a positional advantage in the game.