Questions about rules of Duck Chess

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danielle379

I am curious as to how some drawing rules are implemented (on chesscom). Specifically:

(1)  For threefold repetition, does the position of the duck itself have to repeat?

(2) What counts as insufficient mating material? Note that even King vs King is not trivial in duck chess. As a particular example: suppose white king is at e3, black king is at h2, and duck is at a8 (say). Then white to play wins with Kf2@h3 (i.e. king to f2, then duck at h3). Black will have to play Kh1@xx. Depending on where the duck is, white will play either Kf1@h2 or Kg3@g1 (whichever is legal); and then black will have to put their king in check.

(3) Presumably there is fifty-move rule? (Not stated in rules blurb)

llama36

"Stalemate only occurs when there are no legal moves left (note that walking into “check” is legal). The stalemated player wins."

danielle379

That is completely irrelevant to my question... To be clear, there must be more ways to claim draws than stated in the ruleset you quoted, since otherwise play might never end. (E.g if it became king vs king and neither side is stuck near the corner, if there are no additional rules than you are going to be playing until someone disconnects.) I am asking about the specifics.

llama36

You said king vs king is not trivial, but it is. In the sequence you gave black wins because "the stalemated player wins."

So I'm guessing #1 is "yes if they programmed it well, but actually no because they're either lazy or bad at chess."

#2  K vs K is an auto draw because in regular chess it's an auto draw and they wouldn't have changed that code.

#3 should be yes since they say it's the same as regular chess except the duck.

llama36

By the way, I played a few games... it was kinda fun.

My first impression was knights are quite good since you can't interrupt them, and so players should probably prefer @f6 or @c6 more often.

danielle379

Stalemate is defined as having no legal moves, but black can legally put their king in check. The position I described is not stalemate (stalemate in duck chess is very rare, the king has to be boxed in a clever way).

For the rest of what you say, are you speaking with knowledge or just guessing? I mean, I could guess too... this is not helpful.

llama36

Oh yeah, I guess KxK could happen, sorry.