Suggestion: Claim Win points based on remaining material

The Claim Win button has attracted some controversy recently for a couple of reasons.

• It can lead to situations where the winning player determines 2nd and 3rd by deciding whether to play on or 'resign'
• It is perceived (wrongly in my opinion) as unfair because it isn't available in normal chess

Currently, Claim Win:

• Provides 20 points to other player
• Is optional

I propose that Claim Win becomes:

• Automatic (on the winning player's turn)
• Provides variable points to other player based on material disparities

Points are determined like this:

Losing player's points of material on the board minus winning player's material on the board

For obvious reasons, the points provided could not be less than 0 or more than 20.

 Examples

Player A: 60 points (off board), 40 (on board)

Player B: 12 points (off), eliminated

Player C: 30 points (off), eliminated

Player D: 39 points (off), 55 (on)

It is Player A's turn. They automatically claim their win. Player D gets 15 points (55 - 40) and comes 2nd.

Note: For auto-claim-win to be enabled, the other two players must be fully eliminated - none of their kings can be available for capture.  

I don't agree, because if I have 21 point more but I am completely winning like up a few queens it makes more sense to play on as you can gain more rating, this is most likely if you are playing lower rated people. So I think the old system is good.

Honestly, I never use the 'Claim Win' feature. It says "I know you could take first place if

I let this game continue, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead and up yours". It's cowardly. If the other player can beat you in the end, they deserve to.

I propose removing the 'claim win' feature entirely and replace it with a 'last man standing' rule. Under this rule, the last remaining player automatically gets first regardless of point score, and ranking continues as normal from there.

I guess, but this new system has the advantages of avoiding ethical dilemmas and shortening games.

Yeah they could drag on for a very long time without it

This topic has been discussed a lot in other forums and the problem is that if three people hack at each other and one stays back he/she will win doing nothing, of course then nobody attcks anyone being afraid not to be last man standing, which means no one will come out of passiveness and you get a boring game. That's just a overview of why this doesn't work, if you want more info check the other forums.

Claim Win as it stands is just a renamed resign button. So if you wanted to remove the Claim Win  button, you would also have to remove the resign button as well, which would likely be an uphill battle.

'Last man standing' has been suggested several times. The main disadvantage is that it encourages passive play - a bit like making the Olympic 100m sprint 'last person wins'. But it has its fans...

@jumpyknight8 I an not sure I understand your suggestion. Lets give an example of what I think you mean:

Player-A: 20 points
Player-B: 19 points, eliminated
Player-C: 18 points, eliminated
Player-D: 17 points, equal material with Player-A

If I understand correctly, the game immediately ends with Player-A as the winner, and Player-D is provided with zero points and finishes in the last place. Am I right?

No. Player A would have to be 21 points ahead of Player D (off the board).

Sorry, I should put up an example.

This is not correct. The score evaluation is determined entirely by whether you win, lose or draw against each other player, and does not consider the point difference. So you gain the same amount of points by winning by 1 point as 200 points.

However, I agree that the current system is good. If a resign is automatic, this could just shift the end-game to the third player, for example: red has 30pts, blue has 5pt, yellow has 55pts and green is checkmated with 0pts. Yellow then resigns, forcing red to also also automatically resign and ending the game very early, when there was still much more gameplay left.

@jumpyknight8 OK, I got it. Lets give an updated example:

Player-A: 30 points, intact army
Player-B: 2 points, low material, his turn to move
Player-C: 1 points, eliminated
Player-D: 0 points, intact army

If Player-B chooses to resign at this point, the game will end immediately with Player-A as the winner, Player-B in the second place, Player-C in the third place, and Player-D is provided with zero points and finishes in the last place. Yes?

It's true, there would be. Perhaps my suggestion could be modified so auto-claim-win would only come into effect when the other two players were fully eliminated (i.e. no dead kings up for grabs).

No, Player B's king is still available.

@jumpyknight8 OK, another example:

Player-A: 30 points, intact army
Player-B: 2 points, low material, his turn to move, is checked by Player-A who plays next
Player-C: 1 points, eliminated
Player-D: 0 points, intact army

If Player-B chooses to resign at this point, his king will be captured by Player-A in the next move, and after that the game will end immediately with Player-A as the winner, and Player-D in the last place. Now I got it! 

EDIT: I edited Player-A's points.

Yes, but note that the game doesn't end immediately after the king capture; Player D has to play first and only then does the game finish.

Correct. Player-D will have one last chance to increase his score, and maybe increase his material gap with Player-A, by capturing a Player-A's pawn or piece. Lets now suppose that you are Player-D, and with these rules in effect you finished in the last place, although with the current rules you would come second. Would you think that the game result is fair for you?

No 

But consider:

• Player D has an intact army but no points, therefore they have likely been very passive during the game
• And they can use their last turn to grab material

I think that your suggestion punishes passivity a bit too much.

The best last move of Player-D could be easily calculated in advance by Player-B, so that he can be pretty sure about the outcome of his resignation. Actually, keeping with the spirit of the suggestion, the last move of Player-D could be safely automated, by auto-selecting the move that grabs the most valuable piece of Player-A available (or checkmating him if possible), to shorten the game by one more ply.

Also the precondition of capturing the leftover kings before the activation of the auto-claim mechanism, could allow the last remaining players to collude with each other with the intention of both outscoring the eliminated players. As an example Player-A could delay the capturing of Player-B's dead king, and first give his queen as a gift to Player-D, to ensure that his opponent will finish 2nd instead of 4th.

I just experienced a similar situation. My opponent was a little over 20 points ahead.  There was enough material left for me to beat him point wise. I wish I has screen shotted the game. I assume he hit claim win or maybe he just resigned I dunno for sure. He took a cowards win in my book. I couldn't check mate him right then but so long as I didn't make a mistake, I would have had him. So he got the cheap win. I have a hard time calling it that though. He gave up so he wouldn't lose and that is a contradiction if I ever heard one. 
It's the nature of the game. If that can find  a way to fine tune the claim win feature so that it doesn't cause someone to lose that might have won then great. Other than that the game is just too much fun to not have around to play.

The objective of this game is points. Likewise the objective of standard chess is checkmate. Consider this analogy: In standard chess a game ends immediately after a king becomes checkmated. Nobody is interested about what would happen if the game was continued with one king on the board. Maybe the other king could be checkmated later on, possibly at the very next move. But nobody cares. You lost your king -> you lost the game, end of story. In 4-player chess the winning condition is: have more points than anybody else. The moment you achieve this, you can end the game immediately, and you are the winner. Nobody should care about what would happen if you had allowed the game to continue. The analogy is not perfect, because the win claim is not obligatory like in standard chess, but it's still a pretty good analogy IMHO.