New checkmate dead king rule

Recently this rule was implemented:

Non-grey dead kings CAN be checkmated to attain +20 points.

I would like to hear some motivation of this rule since I have not heard anything of it. It has several implications and to be honest I am missing the benefits. Below is a strange example:

In this position, red is in check, but not checkmated since he can block with his rook. Red resigned. Next, blue played a random move (Rxi7) and then the game saw that the red king was checkmated since the gray rook could no longer block the check. Blue was awarded 20 points for the checkmate. Also a bit interesting that the d2 square which is a gray piece was not seen as a possible square to not be a checkmate.

It seams more like a bug than a feature.

It is definitely a bug. Blue should not get the points for that.

Another thing is the gray piece on d2 ... It may be considered as an occupied square or not, depends on what the developers want to tell us  If a king can not eat his own pieces even if they are dead (gray) then this square is occupied for that king. But if he can eat any gray piece - it is not a checkmate. I think that any king should be able to eat (potentially) any gray piece, otherwise there will be a mess. If 2 players resign there will be 2 sorts of gray pieces on the board. And a human player can not recognize which of them used to be green and which used to be red. So, all the gray pieces must be the same.

Who should get the points then? I assume we should not answer that it is the player that made the checkmating move, since that would be red when he turned his rook gray by resigning. If we say it is the player that delivered the check it would be inconsistent with other checkmating rules and there could potentially be several players that checks the king.

I want to say the player that is first to capture the king gets the points, but that is the old rules.

@Martin0 BabYagun is talking having in mind his suggestion about AI controlled zombie kings. :-)

Who should get the points? The player that will capture the dead king, if this ever happens. Or the last-standing player, if nobody has captured the king until then.

• Non-grey dead kings CAN be checkmated to attain +20 points.

This change is just bad. Now the guy closest to the dead king is for sure going to get the points, and will not even lose material in doing so. Since he does not have to even capture the king, it's one lucky move for 20 points. Before it was 2 lucky moves with a material loss...in short:

Before: 2 moves to get king and (usually) a material loss, since the points can only be earned at the specific square of the nongrey dead king

Now: 1 move to get the king and no material loss, since any checking square is good enough.

It just so happened a few minutes ago that I was two points behind another player, and then one player timed out. I was close to mating the second player, but he had a "mate in 1" on the dead king, in reality it was just a check. With the old rules I would have gotten the 2 points back when I recaptured the piece taking the dead king, instead the victory was given to the other player basically automatically when the second to last opponent player timed out.

This is just annoying. Change it back to the way it was. At least then a timeout would result in a fight for the dead king. Now it's just closest player gets +20 points.

Martin0, to answer your question (and to make this game better) we need to have a definition of the checkmate. What exactly is a checkmate in 4 Player Chess? Once we have the definition we can answer the questions. Otherwise the answers (and the rules) are going to be artificial and controversial.

Chess.com developers did not provide any definition of Checkmate (and Stalemate btw). They want you Martin0 to create it.  Ok, ok, the community, not you personally.

The dead king should be captured. Checkmate for a dead king is basically the same as a single check, since it wouldn't move anyways. 

We do not have the definition of the checkmate even for alive kings. For example, now red checks green king, blue attacks an empty square (potential escape path) and it is considered as a checkmate. Why?! Yellow could capture the red or blue piece and either remove the threat or open the escape path, or put a piece between red piece and green king. But yellow does not have such a chance. Again: Why?!

Show me a definition of the checkmate and I'll tell you if it is a bug or a feature. Now I consider it as a bug. There is no such a definition in the game rules currently.

And when we have a clear definition of the "alive king checkmate" we can create one for the leftover kings.

The definition must also clearly say who gets the points. Seriously. Who and how many. The guy who checked the king? What if 2 or 3 players checked him? The guy who closed the escape path? Equal split 10+10 to both of them?

I can ask more questions  We do not have the definition and this opens the space for a dozens of questions.

This kind of weird situation is another reason why I believe there should be no such thing as check or checkmate in 4-player chess and you should instead play until your king is captured.  Thus, moving into check would be a legal move (albeit very risky), eliminating 99.999% of stalemates.

I've played with that rule in a 3-person game, and it works well there.  I don't see any reason to think it wouldn't work well here too.

And it would nicely cover the situation where two people coordinate (intentionally or otherwise) to mate someone: the points go to the person who actually takes the king.  And the person being mated may have some say in the matter, which could be important if one of them is close behind him on points; for example, you could give your king to the guy who's way ahead of you rather than the guy who's close behind you to increase your chances of second place.

This is exactly my thought as well. I want the rule to be changed back.

it was better before. its too easy to checkmate an undead king who cant move , heres an example, red just "mated"

I noticed that too, the piece that checkmates does not need to be protected for it to count as a mate

This honestly seems like the cleanest approach.  Check, checkmate, and stalemate should be completely removed from the equation.  Just because you are in "check" (conventionally speaking), you may even decide not to move out of it... If red puts yellow into check with rook, then blue threatens red's queen with a pawn attack, yellow may choose to ignore the check - perhaps calculating that red is more likely to move their queen to safety rather than capture the yellow king.  The only "special" feature of the king is, once you lose your king, you are dead.

An interesting twist this creates: checkmating moves may require a bit more care.  A player put into checkmate would have one move which, though not rescuing the king, might entail taking some material of the check-mating player (perhaps even with the endangered king itself).

One extension: conventional-stalemate can be averted with simple "pass" option which a player could use anytime to skip any turn (though it'd be the only legal "move" in a stalemated situation).  Not sure how popular it would be, but I can fathom scenarios: "I am happy with my position and don't want to waste any time figuring out how to improve it".

I played two games today. In the first, I noticed the new rule in that I got 20 points and turned the 'dead' king grey (super-dead?) without needing to capture it.  In the second game however, I felt I could not win and decided to capture a bishop in King's Indian position with my queen to boost my score by 5. This worked ok, but the victim proceeded to time out and...I didn't get the points for his king at all! Ok I can't be sure that I didn't get *something* but it can't have been 20 because, as you can see, my score is 25 and I had already captured heaps of stuff other than the bishop.

@kevinkirkpat, I don't like the "pass" option.  It lets you bail out of a zugzwang.

Guys, chess won't be the chess without checks and checkmates. Seriously. It will be a game like checkers. We can change lot's of things, but I'd avoid removing these 2 major features.

Yes, just revert the newest rule change for dead kings and I'm happy. The game was quite good. The newest change increased "luck" factor rather than minimizing it. The "stalemate" and such also was quite fun, but it aids the defender since the attacker can't allow a 3rd player to force stalemate or mate directly.

It's already not chess.

We are reverting this back to requiring the king to be captured. We agreed the new rule made positional luck a bigger factor and eliminated some of the risk often involved with capturing a dead king. Thanks for the feedback, guys!