Illustrative example of why "auto-claim-win" should be given more consideration

After viewing one of "dubiousskills" excellent videos, I felt it served as a perfect example of "auto-claim-win" improving the game.

The video is titled "4 PLAYER CHESS COMMENTARY (100+ POINTS) 1745!!"

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apuJkggoFy4

Dubiousskills' channel (highly recommended!) : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCntDXISnx7OSZZ4fcueapzg/videos

I recommend watching the whole game.  But my emphasis here is on play from the time green captures yellow's king (at 23:30). 

After this capture, there are three players left: green, red, and blue.  Green quickly parlays his king-capture into utter dominance; leading both blue and red by 10+ points, 2 queens, and positional soundness (e.g. king safety, pawn structure, etc).  By the 25:00 mark, it's clear that even if blue and red 100% conspired, taking green down would be a long shot.  However, while first place is almost certainly out of reach, blue and red have a dead-heat battle for 2nd: blue has a +11 point advantage, while red is up in material and has a better position.

This is the point of game where I believe the auto-claim-win feature would begin to objectively improve the game better for all three players.  Green's strategy becomes very clear:

1) maintain (or extend) point-lead

2) weaken blue & red until one of them can be checkmated. 

Meanwhile, by this same 25:00 mark, blue & red are clearly in a "battle for distant 2nd".  Both should realize "Green will be aiming to checkmate one of us to secure the win."  With "auto-claim-win", they would also realize "Whoever green doesn't checkmate will get +20 points".  

As such, blue would have 2 realistic ways to beat red:

Aggressive: extend the 11-point lead to a 20+ point lead over red, such that even if green checkmates blue first, red's +20 point bonus won't be enough to catch up.  Look for ways to exchange rooks/bishop with green to boost lead.  

Defensive: With an 11-point lead, red's only hope to win is if green decides that it's easier to checkmate blue than red.  Defend blue king at all costs; and, if possible, try to make an attack on red's king more attractive to green by weakening red's king defenses.  Perhaps even sacrifice any material that isn't defending blue king in a way that opens up red's king.  Make the "mate-red-for-win" as lucrative to green as possible.

Red meanwhile has two similar strategies:

1) Long-shot: super aggressive aim to gain 31+ points over blue before green can mate red (maybe possible if a pawn or two can be promoted and green allows a lot of piece exchanges).

2) More realistically: use material/positional advantages to ensure blue is mated first (there's really not much hope of gaining the 31+ points on blue).  Defend red king and make "mate-blue-first" more attractive to green than "mate-red-first".

Skip to 32:00 to see how the lack of auto-claim-win sours the game overall.  Red winds up doing a worse job than blue (IMO).  Red does overcome blue's +11 point lead, but only to pull ahead by a meager +4 points (about half of the +31 needed to justify an "aggressive" strategy).  Worse, in working to gain these points, red has also failed on the second strategy: neglecting king safety, leaving red open to the quick&easy mate from green at 32:30.  

And this is where things go bad (IMO).  Green has to make an ethical decision: to claim win (giving blue +20 and second place), or to play to checkmate blue (giving red the win with +4 points).  I don't think it's good sport to force green into making this decision; and I *really* don't think it's good sport to leave red&blue's fate in green's hands.  Frankly, I could see either red or blue feeling a little bitter/cheated, regardless of whether green chose to claim-win.  

However, the lack-of-auto-win played a role in red's decision.  It introduced a random variable: since red couldn't count on green to auto-claim win, allowing blue to retain even a sliver of a lead would lead to risk that green mates blue, doesn't claim-win, then mates red.  

Anyway it plays out, I think the lack of auto-claim-win makes the ethical choice of "claim win, yes or no" a dominating factor of the 3-players-remaining dynamic.  This is a problem, because that ethical choice has nothing to do with how skillfully either of the other two players choose to play.

Perhaps a third option that accounts for the preference of some players to win by "battle to the death".

Before start of game, players choose between:

[editted to add: this would be selected "per-player", not as a game-level option that all 4 players need to agree to]

1) [Default] auto "claim win" is enabled; "claim win" is performed automatically by server as soon as a player would win even after resigning.

2) Auto "claim win" is disabled.  This means players will not get "claim win" option.  In fact, in the spirit of "non-random outcome" and eliminating ethical choices, if this option is chosen, players MUST checkmate/stalemate final opponent for the win (or opponent must resign). Regardless of point lead, if a player is using this option and either flags or resigns while in the lead, their final score is set to the smallest of [points at time of resignation] and  [winning player's final score minus 1].

Naturally, each player's selection should be evident upon the start of the game; so in situation where one player establishes dominating lead, all players can optimize their strategy according that player's selection.

Not to toot my own horn, but I really, really like this proposed option. In reality, most players already know if they're the "claim win" or "battle to the death" type. This option is just a way to avoid other player's needing to guess at, and strategize accordingly to, their opponents' personal preferences.

This is discussed at length here: Ethics of sort

As a side note, I like @dubiousskills's videos, especially the latest ones with commentary, because he is enthusiastic and he is putting real effort on making them. But I am not a fan because of how much he is obsessed with his rating! 

not sure how easy it is to program but you could have a button for anyone (*or maybe after 1st player goes out) to hit that says "force claim win" so anyone of the remaining 3 can push it during the game and it will send a message in chat that a player has enacted a force claim win (when it gets to 2 players obviously). that way it is announced at the time and the last 3 people have somewhat of a say in it...-- all that said I think it would be clear that just forcing a claim win would pretty much be the same thing

About option 2 (Claim win disabled), here is a scenario that I expect to happen frequently:

Player-A: 70 points (very low material)
Player-B: 25 points (high material)
Player-C: 40 points (eliminated)
Player-D: 10 points (eliminated)

Player-A would like to resign, because he has nothing to gain by continue playing. But under the proposed rule he can't resign without losing the first place. So he'll be forced to continue playing, hoping to be checkmated soon (so he can start a new game). He will even be tempted to help Player-B checkmate him, by removing the defenses in front of his own king, but he may find that Player-B is not very interested. The twist is that Player-B's only hope for the first place is by winning by resignation. So he will be tempted to drag the game as long as possible, hopping that 500 moves later Player-A will be so utterly disgusted that he'll finally press the resign button to escape the martyrdom!

He did a nice job, but @5:31 his Knight moved to k6 was almost like he knew red before the game and that he wouldn’t take it, because his Bishop would’ve weakened green’s King’s covering when the Pawn were to grab the Bishop after it took that Knight. Only thing I have to say about his play.

I think this sort of dilemma arises because the addition of two players and points to normal chess leads to this situation where resigning is OK. To see what I mean, consider what would have happened if Green and Blue were playing a normal game of chess with the same material they had in the game after the Red checkmate. Green certainly wouldn't resign then! But in 4-player chess with the addition of points, resigning becomes a perfectly tenable option because Green has already won. Not 'won' in the sense of 'large material advantage' or 'unstoppable passed pawn', but 'no possible series of moves or actions leading to defeat' won.

So why does Blue get such a big, even decisive reward in this situation? After all, Green didn't resign because it was hopeless playing on and Blue's victory was inevitable, he resigned because it made no difference to him whatsoever in terms of the result. It doesn't seem fair that Blue gains twenty points (!) and ends up in second because Green claims his win before he checkmates Blue.

I propose that whenever this situation arises (where one player has a guaranteed victory, even after the worst possible series of legal moves and/or actions), the player automatically claims the win, but any remaining players get no extra points.

TL;DR Auto-claim win but no extra points for remaining player.

@jumpyknight8 the problem with your proposition is that will deprive many players from a well-deserved second place. Consider the same scenario I presented earlier:

Player-A: 70 points (very low material)
Player-B: 25 points (high material)
Player-C: 40 points (eliminated)
Player-D: 10 points (eliminated)

Player-A has a guaranteed victory, so according to your proposition Player-A automatically claims the win, and Player-B gets no extra points. So Player-B finished 3rd. Isn't it unfair for Player-B, who could easily checkmate the leader and get +20 points if he had the chance?

@skeftomilos yes, this is a problem, but no worse than the original scenario's problem of an undeserved second place caused by a resignation. Auto-claim also has the advantages of finishing the game faster so players can move on to other, more lively games; and at least being consistent in every game, rather than a manual claim-win button with all the murky ethics that entail.

@jumpyknight8 I think it is actually worse, for at least two reasons.

a) The player who receives the unfair treatment is one of the last remaining players, and will always observe it. On the contrary the unfairness of the current system affects one of the eliminated players, who is probably already playing a new game.

b) Uncaptured dead kings are not rewarded to any player. So, after the leader has established a +21 points advantage and one of the four players has been eliminated, the second player can immediately resign, end the game, and claim the second place.

I agree that making the average game shorter in duration is something desirable, and your proposition certainly accomplishes this goal, but why would you like to even start a game if you knew that the finish will be so random and anticlimactic?

This is not true, material points can still be gained by both players. The leader by +21, can come 3rd if there are two other players left.

lol what would eliminate all the turmoil would be removing all points and just enjoy the great game which indeed would make it way more F U N because you're not focusing on the silly aspect, rather YOUR MOVE.

If only we agreed I bet this game would be so P L A Y E D !