I hate the threefold repetition rule

Just remember that a lone king can stalemate a king and a-pawn/h-pawn, so a lone king would then be able to win on time against an opponent who still had an a-pawn and/or h-pawn.

There could be a rule that someone loses if they repeat a position!

Likewise there is no particular reason why stalemate could not be viewed as a loss for the player who cannot move - it is an arbitrary choice that it is a draw.

Overall, chess is simply an arbitrary game with a set of arbitrary rules. It doesn't matter much.

An interesting example from another game is the requirement to capture in draughts/checkers.

Yes, there is a requirement to capture in losing chess.

I thought about the practicalities of such a repetition rule. But remember the actual rule also requires checking past positions and also can be crucial to the result of the game! So there is very little to pick between them on those grounds.

All kinds of interesting things can be said about the "repetition rule" but be so clever to first ROFL your heart out over the rules of Chinese chess per Wikipedia. If only 10% true, they fully deserve the Chinese reputation for doing things in an impractical and unnatural way.

Also note that the repetition rule (plus others) are fundamentally different from the checkmate and stalemate rule. The latter are only in the rules to provide a termination score (the payout) not to define a termination. Both stalemate and checkmate terminate automatically due to the absence of legal moves! Repetitions are in the rules for the opposite reason. Most of us find it reasonable to score them with a draw payout but the issues are always about "how to terminate" when legal moves still appear available.- such as about to how and when (pre-)claim and automatically draw and after how many repetitions!

Listen, grasshopper, if you don't like the rule, quit Chess and play some other game. Mic drop!

Please quit Chess as you can't handle it, obviously.

It's OK to discuss rules as it is OK to discuss politics but the grassroot places where we do it are not the places where changes are decided. Rules in sports and games and politics change over time and the discussion needs to start somewhere. The triggers often come not from inside the targeted domain but from external factors and pressures.

A typical chess factor is the arrival of the computer in chess. You can't just say "2 people agreed on the rules and we ignore the computer" because the external factors are the ones we do not control but which control us! For instance, the first victim in the old rules was the adjournment of games which completely went out of fashion because of peoples "home work" with it. A recent change was in the repetition and 50-move rules. Now a chess game with 5 times the same position automatically draws without claims. That too is related to the computer which can independently terminate a game without the players having a say in it. No human intervention is required by either the arbiter or the players. Though the rule applies to OTB chess as well, it is most useful in a digital environment where it is easiest to enforce. Another interesting change is the execution of the castling rule. At one time a player was allowed to castle by "simultaneously"(as if that exists) moving the rook and the king to their destination squares. No longer true since you can't simply do that on a computer screen and now you clearly have to play the king first!

Another factor affecting chess rules is the high drawing percentage in top level chess. Though the chess rules permit a draw outcome, most competitions need a winner. One match winner, not both. So we devised a series of game formats among which the Armageddon format is the weirdest. It effectively changes the scoring of end positions. When you play the wrong color you will lose a game which you would draw by the basic chess rules. You no longer need to go for the stated objective of the game which is checkmate - but not being checkmated yourself is sufficient to get the same result in Armageddon! And what about Chess960 which is another method to get away from known theory and high rates of undecided games. Quite some rule changes when you consider the whole process.

The third place where rules regularly change are chess compositions you also know as puzzles. One fundamental reason they need extra rules is the missing data in diagrams. I won't go into details but the chess composers regularly bump into issues which causes the release of about one Codex update per decade.

Just to say that there are reasons to keep rules up-to-date even for someone made of a conservative fabric. But most changes over the years have come as responses to external threats and they are made precisely to protect as much of the character of the original chess game (rules) as possible!

I think the rule should balance the efforts and capabilities of the winner by material with the smart loser who found the threefold repetition in the first place.

Example : Instead of 1/2 - 1/2 , there should be a system where games are given rating points out of 10 lets say and the person winning by material gets 9 of the 10 points and the person who found perpetual gets 5 out of the 10 points . This gives the loser a draw and the winner a winning accomplishment based on effort .

9 out of 10 for the side winning by material because it's not a complete win but you're almost there where it not for check repetition

and 5 out of 10 for the smart loser because while you're not losing or stalemating you're not winning either , just the game cannot progress further and is hence "stuck in the middle" Therefore you get the "middle" of 0 and 10 points which is 5.

you cannot decide on a capture of a king that hasn't occurred . So next , you would thus have to consider what was the situation prior to the threefold repetition and whether or not a win was possible . Hence , win was possible winner had it not been for threefold repetition . Therefore , almost win = 9/10 points . Now , we move on to repeater . If it hadn't been for threefold repetition then repeater would've been lost . However , game doesn't have a decisive result and is "stuck in the middle" thanks to his smart intellect and hence repeater should get 5/10 points something that hangs in the "middle" between 0 which is loss and 10 which is win .

Half each ???????????? the move repeaters opponent was almost winning . It should be Move Repeater : 5/10 , Opponent : 9/10

If there is no capturing of the opposing king , making that the basis of a decision is simply unethical . Hereafter , you would need to look at criteria that applies to both sides to make an equitable , reliable and just decision . That's where material imbalance and probability of a win if not for threefold repetition would come into play . As king capturing is in effect an obsolete criteria if any fair decisions are to be made regarding outcome of game . What you're saying is tantamount to me assessing your wealth based on how many ferraris you own , you may not own a ferrari so that is therefore not a usable criteria and hence an obsolete criteria when it comes to fair and just decisions . There I would need another criteria for assessment and that would be anything from how much the car costs to whether or not you own an expensive house or anything but it cannot be ferrari since you don't have that . Similarly , you cannot assess on capturing of king cause that doesn't exist in the position .

you still around?

The point of the game is to checkmate. It is not to get material or to almost win. Winning is hard. Making it easier to win or giving bonus points for almost winning dilutes the richness of the game.

there is no richness in a game where losers can escape with draws and swindle half points away from winners without the "almost winner" or winners being sufficiently compensated .

That is an "empty" text considering that I gave the examples in the post. Which are precisely the opposite of "whims" but based on answering to the pressures on the chess environment. And these changes have happened so there is no point in claiming that chess players wouldn't allow that to happen.

The "whim"part is what we try to keep from happening - like changing the stalemate rule. Nothing in the competition context or in the ways and means of playing chess would invite or force us to change the stalemate rule. Doing so would have a massive effect on the character of chess, especially endgames. You can rewrite all the theory books about it.

Then how will the game end if they comtinously make the same moves?

There is still the 50 move rule. Three-fold repetition merely shortens the process when only best moves be each side will draw.

Over the years there have been a number of people that have had brainstorms about draws being worth other than 1/2 per player based on which player was deemed to have a "better" position. That would require an analysis by somebody other than the players and I've seen many TDs/arbiters whose analysis abilities were not anywhere near as good as the players, and engines where the horizon effect kept them from seeing far enough to realize that an analysis at a smaller ply-level can be very inaccurate. Looking only at material can be quite erroneous when one player sacrifices material to tie the opponent up and that opponent has to sacrifice back for three-fold repetition (should the player who made the smaller sacrifice be the one to automatically get more points that the other?)

Also remember that when a player runs out of time then FIDE says the player lost if there is any way that the opponent can win, and a change in the scores people have would mean that the player out of time would get the least result available (i.e., if a player got 0.75 for delivering stalemate and 0.25 for being stalemated then if the player had an a-pawn or h-pawn and the opponent had a lone king the potential for the lone king delivering stalemate would result in a player that flags with a ton of material being awarded only 0.25).