I hate the threefold repetition rule

People that whine and complain about rules like this one, or another popular one is the stalemate rule, seriously have no future in chess!

It's like complaining about the Traveling rule in basketball and that you should be able to just carry the ball to the other side of the court!

Martin Stahl mentioned skill which is more relevant than fairness. Managing the repetition and 50/75 move rules is part of the chess skills. Failure to get the result you "deserve" is the result of  poor game management, especially time management. Also of poor planning. "I first try A and if that won't work I try B". Always be aware that iffy planning and playing may lead to an unforeseen draw by one of the special draw rules. If you have a clear mind and pick the right course straight away you can dodge those unnecessary draws. In cases where the special draws are unavoidable - like you need more than 50 moves to mate - accept that the designers of the rules intend them to signal that your advantage is too small to deserve a victory score. There are many small advantages in chess which do not win a game and this is just one of them.

I predict that the culture around the special draws will change, OTB becomes a hybrid game. Every chess set you buy will contain a display and a chip to help you in recording the game and assessing the state of the draw counters. Like, there will be a permanent counter display for how far you are in a 50M series. And I guess the display may list all move options repeating positions if you were to choose one of them. plus the number of repeats per option. That will relieve the burden on your memory without affecting your choices.

No irony. I doubt very much that would be considered  "referring to written notes" since you have written nothing. The computer does exactly the same as you do now when you read your own paper game record to see whether you repeated a position 2 or 3 times, something you can do precisely because they are your own written notes. Notes the rules demand you to keep, btw!

Clearly I predicted a future scenario where OTB chess sets are equipped with some hardware and software, primarily to autodetect and record your game moves. If such requires any form of authorization, FIDE will provide it as it has already done the same for the online game services. Poor handwriting and incomplete game records are probably the first things an arbiter would want to get rid of as they cause many incidents. And they are easily forestalled with chipped chessboards. Having made this step some other things I mentioned are the obvious next targets as they are purely administrative as well and make the playing a bit more comfortable without overtaking the player's skills and choices. I have not played a chess.com game for a long time but I bet I will already get some of the state information I asked for - with FIDE's approval. Obviously the online and offline environments need to be synchronized once they are capable of providing the same administrative services. The same ones traditionally maintainied by the players themselves!

I get that problem every time when I play Stockfish. Whenever I find a way to win some pieces it just keeps putting me in a cheap checkmate.

Covering a few issues.

1) the option of "passing" instead of moving with both players "passing" being a draw.

That turns every K+P vs K ending into a draw (once the defending king gets in front of the pawn) even when a king is two squares in front of its own pawn.  Eventually you reach a position such as Black Ke8, White Kd6 and Pe6 being moved to e7.  Black simply "passes" forever and White cannot queen.

2) stalemate being a loss.

White Kh8 and Ph7 versus Black Kf8 (or Kf7) would be a win for Black even though Black is down to just a king.  That would also mean that if lone-king Black flags White and White still has an a-pawn or an h-pawn (with or without any additional pieces) then Black's sole king would be enough material to win on time.  For that matter, there are (tortuously contrived) positions without an a-pawn or h-pawn where a lone king could still stalemate the opponent (for a simple one think of Black Kd8 and White Ba7, Ra8 Kb8, Pb7 and White's last move being Pb5 to b6).  For FIDE any potential winning position, no matter how tortuously contrived, is enough to win on time (US chess is almost the same but there are a few types of FIDE flag-winnable positions that are not flag-winnable in US chess).

3) electronic assistance in OTB (such as indicating 50-move or 3-fold draws)

When the Monroi (an Electronic Notation Device - END) first came out it was designed to flag whether or not moves were illegal.  To remain legal that had to be an option that could be turned off so that users of the device did not get assistance in determining whether or not their opponents' moves were legal.  The makers of the device were surprised to hear that such an option was needed but were able to add it quickly to the design.

In the original game of the thread, black just made completely random moves again and again, until the repetition rule kicked in. No attempt to even try to escape checks and try to win the game.

I'm afraid that is nonsense. Having a knob could not possible legalize a machine unless it comes with instructions addressing its enforceable use. Perhaps FIDE won't sell it in its own popsy flopsy toy shop without the knob but that is mere profit maximization. Useless add-ons are known to sell at embarrassing prices. If, on the other hand, FIDE granted the organizers of official OTB events the privilege of allowing or disallowing assistance in detecting/correcting illegal moves, then it is clear that FIDE yielded control of article 4 in its chess laws to event organizers.

Whatever is going on, this is a transitional state. The dividing line between OTB and computer assisted play is drawn in the wrong place. How it should be - and will be - is that online and offline digital game services are on one side - providing the same or equivalent services - while the pure, out in the desert,  OTB game would necessarily require more physical provisions as we have in article 4 now. "Illegal moves" are a great example. You probably make illegal moves in your online chess.com game interface (dragging your piece to an illegal square) but it refuses to accept them which is the same as looking away from the transgression of article 4 and automatically providing you with the opportunity to freely correct. It is an intentional rule change to article 4 which FIDE apparently accepts. Then why treat an offline game recorder any different? True, you move the piece instead of the mouse but how much different is that? What is relevant is that your "monroi-like" device is capable of effectively mimicking the online decisioning and correction process - with minimal human intervention. Getting the same services from the two different electronic environments is something that will be well understood and appreciated by our chessplayers.

Whether or not to include electronic detection and signalling of 50M en repetition events is an issue of different substance. I favor it simply because - information-wise - it is no different from reading back your own written game record during the game, which you are always allowed to do. Just a bit more comfortable. And none of it replaces any bit of your chess skills or intelligence. It is only administration - like the recording of the game moves!

"Illegal moves" are a great example. You probably make illegal moves in your online chess.com game interface (dragging your piece to an illegal square) but it refuses to accept them which is the same as looking away from the transgression of article 4 and automatically providing you with the opportunity to freely correct.

Disgree. Under art.4 it's not possible to make an illegal move, because if you release your piece on a square that doesn't represent a legal move you haven't yet 'made' your move. ('Made' again in terms of art 4.) It's perfectly legal - you still have the move, so you're required to deposit it on a square that does represent a legal move at some point.

You can complete an illegal move if you're playing under competition rules, which you do by pressing the clock before having 'made' your move. The engine should not stop your clock under the circumstances you describe (which it normally doesn't - though it shouldn't interfere by returning your piece to its original square, which it normally does).

On the other hand the engine normally plays something approximating to competition rules and takes control of the clock out of your hands, so by removing the possibility of completing an illegal move the gist of your argument is preserved, but the transgression you are spared would be under art.7.

That's your fault. play Kf8

@MARattigan: What you are missing in your comment is that the online interface never followed article 4 and 7 on a fundamental level in the first place. Chess game interfaces follow a set of rules unknown to those who rely on the FIDE laws and I have no clue who authorized them and precisely where and how. Though you mention that the interface restores the pre-move state after an attempted illegal move you fail to notice that the whole point of article 4 is to direct you on how to proceed from this point. Having touched the piece - already by picking it up but most certainly by releasing it on an illegal square - changes your options. You are no longer free to play any move but are restricted to replaying the same piece or recapturing the unit "touched and captured" on the illegal square. None of that happens! The fact that such interfaces also manage your clock is a further transgression and one of crucial significance. It is impossible to make the distinction between an "illegal move" and an "incomplete move" thru the player choices. It's the interface that decides that you didn't push the clock and gives you a free retry for correction. To get anywhere near the chess rules the game interface would at least force you to push an electronic clock button as a move-completing action.

The point is that the online move process is clearly an interpretation of the chess laws which makes it senseless to just discuss it through parsing and zooming in on law texts. Interpretations are never derived from laws, only from design concepts in the field of application. The whole idea of my comment is to simplify the approach to 3 different ways of playing legal chess: a) pure OTB, b) online chess c) OTB with offline electronic support such as described by jetoba. It makes little sense to separate the online from the off-line electronic environment when we have the means to synchronize their effective operation in the areas of electronic functionality. I have given up on a future with a single set of game rules for both the machines and the pure OTB games. I do however think that FIDE ought to give us a nice guide with all the "acceptable" deviations in electronic environments from the actual game rules.

Not a knob.  A setup option.  Since players can physically make unintentional illegal moves, and may not notice them, players are not allowed to have electronic assistance in detecting them (particularly critical for large RapidPlay or Blitz tournaments with inadequate supervision).

Arbiters are able to see the setup options and playing using the wrong options can be penalized.

Electronic Notation Devices (ENDs) in OTB play were initially looked at with a great deal of concern to make sure that the user of the device would not be getting any fair-play violating assistance.  In the US the scholastic nationals bar all ENDs and the largest organizer bars all personal ENDs for FIDE-rated sections and one of the most recent ENDs for US Chess rated sections (that same organizer provides some ENDs to the top boards of some of its competitions as a way of getting an electronic scoresheet without risking any END with invalid settings chosen).

It's a good rule that ensures accurate play and no redundancy. It keeps the mind sharp.

But one repetition should be allowed because it can alternate the tempo in a way to ensure a winning position, especially during endgames.

Then again, it should be called twofold repetition, since they count in the original position, but that's not a repeat. It has frustrated me before ('but that's twice!')

Okay, look at it this way. It's another rule which if you break, is a stupid blunder. If you're in a winning position and get perpetual checked, that's honestly on you and frankly, a skill issue. 

It's like asking why castling is legal.

me too

EXACTLY!!

I see many uses to this rule:

- Prevent some spam-premoving in gamemodes with more strict time controls.

- Get to the point, get the game to end when a player otherwise winning can't escape checks from a loosing opponent.

- Force players to get proactive if they want to avoid a draw.

In competitive chess, in tournaments, players need to make points. When the stakes are high, this rule becomes a threat which forces them to get creative and play more risky moves. In competitive chess, going for a draw can also be a strategy to win in the bigger scheme of things.