Thanks.
New checkmate dead king rule
Sort:
Oct 12, 2017
0
#23
Skeftomilos , as you said, we can capture the king in 4 Player Chess already. We can capture alive kings too (I even lost 1 game this way.) And I do not offer to remove this "kings can be captured" rule. This rule is fine. But this is not the reason to remove checks and checkmates from the game. Checks and checkmates are the stones in the chess basement. If we remove them we should just rename this game to 4 Player Game and remove Chess from its name. This is my opinion. Can you name other classic games (not the modern clones) with checks and checkmates? Checkers? Backgammon? Nine Men's Morris?
@BabYagun oh, come on! The checkmate is not the definitive characteristic of chess! If we replace checkmate with king-capture in normal chess, nothing will really change. The small minority of games that finishes with checkmate, may finish one move later. In reality I expect most players to resign when their king is mated, and not expect the actual capture in the very next move. Also some bullet games will be decided by blundering a king, and in the last couple of seconds the side with the lonely king could gain some milliseconds by moving in squares controlled by their opponent, forcing flaggers to adapt their flagging techniques. And that's all. Nothing revolutionary really. After all, medieval Persians were playing chess, not a "two player game"!
Oct 12, 2017
0
#25
First of all we do not know what did medieval Persians do. Seriously. There are many distortions, exaggerations, lies, legends and fairy tales when people tell you about medieval times. So, if you read some story about some king cutting throats for capturing chess pieces it may be true and may be false. It may be plausible, may be an emotional and nice story, but you should take it as a book story, not as a fact. I can compose some different story about the 4 Player Chess involving some Indian king (maharajah) and publish it somewhere. And some people will believe it.
What is (are) the definitive characteristic(s) of chess?
So you say that the beautiful story of the angry Shah, that came completely out of my imagination, is not factual? Who would have thought? 
It is indeed factual though that checkmate is a later invention than chess itself.
«In early Sanskrit chess (c. 500–700) the king could be captured and this ended the game. The Persians (c. 700–800) introduced the idea of warning that the king was under attack (announcing check in modern terminology). This was done to avoid the early and accidental end of a game. Later the Persians added the additional rule that a king could not be moved into check or left in check. As a result, the king could not be captured, and checkmate was the only decisive way of ending a game.» (Davidson 1949, pp. 63–64)
Look, I don't deny that checkmate is an important concept in chess culture. It is even the name of the game in some countries. For example шахматы in Russia, or Šachmatai in Lithuania, meaning literally "(the game of) checkmates". What is been argued is that the game we call "4 player chess", because it feels so much like chess, would be a better game without this rule. Trying to preserve the checkmate concept in the 4 player version leads to nonsensical situations, like delivering a check-mate with a move that is not even a check! Going back to the roots of chess and adopting the king-capture rule, we solve a whole bunch of problems. Isn't it something that should be at least tested in practice to see how it goes?
Oct 12, 2017
0
#27
> leads to nonsensical situations, like delivering a check-mate with a move that is not even a check!
Only if we allow this to happen! Currently we do not have any definition of the checkmate here and instead trying to guess how should it be and compare our guesses with what the developers actually programmed. And the developers do not know what they want and look at our reaction and feedback. That is why those nonsense situations still happen.
And the checks could not be removed too. The checks are not ordinary moves with a special power. A check forces the checked player to act accordingly and puts the limit to the list of possible moves. This is a part of the chess spirit. And it is in the base of the chess tactics.
About the definition of the checkmate, you could make the first move by proposing a definition, so that we have something to discuss.
Talking about 2 player chess, the check has enough forcing power by itself. If you ignore it, you are losing your king. So making it obligatory to protect your king from check, is like making obligatory to protect your hands from fire. You will do it anyway, so making it obligatory doesn't change anything really.
4 player chess is different though. You can ignore a check and still not lose your king, because, for example, the player who threatens your king may be too busy with threats against his own king. I would say that a rule that prevents you from making good moves is against the spirit of chess. What asks for the abandonment of the check rule is not me, but the nature of 4 player chess itself!
Oct 12, 2017
0
#29
That is why we need the definition. To stop operating the things like "nature" and "spirit".
The check is a crisis, a potential turning point of the game. Remove it and you'll get more boring game. Same with checkmates.
If we can ignore check than why can't we ignore king capture? Seriously. Why do you think that a game ends for the player once someone captured his king? He may have lots of other pieces, even the whole army. An army needs a leader? Well, the queen is the new leader. Why not? Britain became Great during Queen Victoria reign. The queen is also captured? Ok, there is a bishop. And so on. Let's remove the artificial rules and borders! Let's make the board infinite (open world) etc.
We must have some base, some foundation here. Otherwise we are going to create an arcade game or "match 3".
P.S.
By the way, why don't pawns disappear when there are 3 or more pawns of the same colour in a row?
Oct 12, 2017
0
#30
For the base and foundation you ask, I have already pointed to the ancient roots of chess.
It seems that the idea of removing the compulsory power of checks, makes you panic a little!
OK, lets see things from your point of view. Why don't you start by providing a definition of checkmate, since you think is so needed for the current discussion? You don't wait for a definition to fall from the sky, do you?
Oct 12, 2017
0
#32
Do not become offensive. We discuss, not fight here. Right? Please do not use the NLP manipulations. Thanks.
If I said something offensive, I apologize. My humor may need some adjustments. But don't make it an excuse for changing the subject. You said that a definition of checkmate is needed. Well, OK, maybe. Are you going to provide one? Are you waiting for me to provide one? I am a bit confused right now.
Oct 12, 2017
0
#34
This does not satisfy my definition of definition. A definition is something like this:
Checkmate is the condition where a player is in check, and has no way of protecting his king from the check, and it's his turn to move.
This is also a definition:
Checkmate is the condition where a player is in check, and has no way of protecting his king from the check, even if it's not his turn to move.
The first is the definition of checkmate implied by your suggestion.
The second is the definition of checkmate, according to the current implementation.
So we now have two conflicting definitions of checkmate.
And I don't see how these definitions help us to evaluate the suggestion of abandoning the checkmate as a condition for kicking a player out of the game, and instead using as condition the capture of the player's king. Because the consequences of the condition is what really matters. You could still use the term "checkmated" to describe a player's situation, although this player would still be in the game.
Oct 12, 2017
0
#36
Thanks for the definitions. In the second definition (currently implemented) I see a strange point: "has no way of protecting his king ... even if it's not his turn to move". How can anyone protect his king if it is not his turn? To protect you need to make a move. Obviously. So, this implementation is not natural.
Guys, chess won't be the chess without checks and checkmates. Seriously.
Chess had no checkmates around 1200 years earlier, when the king, the real king, the Shah of Persia, entered furious in the room, and demanded that no king should be captured by mere mortals, ever. Whoever dared to capture a king, real or virtual, should be put to death. So the chess players invented the checkmate rule, out of the necessity to keep their heads attached to their bodies. By allowing the king to be checkmated instead of captured, they fulfilled the royal demand without having to alter the game too much. And the Shah was satisfied since the actual capture of the king would never be a spectacle for the people to see, but would be left for the people's imagination (which he hoped that was not very powerful).
Now that Shahs and Kings are a rare and impotent sight, we could get rid of the never-capture-the-king taboo, as it has already been the case for the frozen kings of the resigned or timed-out players. We are already able to capture these kings, and no curse or calamity has been unleashed on our sacrilegious heads. So we could consider the possibility of starting capturing alive kings also!