I mean, what person is their right mind would engage a game without reading its rules first? I mean, beside a handfull of people who would lose at head or tail for just not even knowing which is which?
POV: You are a chess elitist.
New players keep playing without reading the rules first, lol.
One such thread just every day, when not more.
I'll readily grant that there are so many such threads that I've probably missed some of them, but after being a director (arbiter) for hundreds of scholastic tournaments I've gotten used to the question from people who don't know all of the rules and I just shrug and answer it.
The associated question is for people that have heard of the stalemate rule but don't fully understand it. That question occurs when their king is not in check, has no legal moves, but I do not support their stalemate claim because they have a pawn that can move. Some kids have even tried to argue with me that I have the rule wrong (kids can be so certain when they've been incorrectly taught by somebody they trust) so I just point to a board reset to the initial position, ask them if White's king can move, and then ask them if it is a stalemate. That convinces them that either they or their teacher misunderstood the stalemate rule.
My name is Lauren Goodkind and I'm a chess teacher based in the San Francisco bay area.
The game ended up in stalemate, so that's a draw.
I hope that this helps.
Thank you for explaining that Lauren.
If users are still confused as to what a stalemate is please refer to this article: What is a Stalemate?
Thanks everyone for your help.
-GC
I am playing as white, I just moved my king from e7 to f7 to checkmate him and this is a draw? I don't understand why this is a draw, if someone could help explain I would greatly appreciate it!
With a King and Queen, the easiest way to win is to place the queen in knight opposition to the King and copy the King's moves till the King reaches either the a or h file, or the 1st or 8th rank. Knight Opposition means, if the Queen was a Knight, it would be checking the King.
However, this has a draw back if the the king reaches a corner, in which case, placing the Queen in Knight opposition takes away all squares from the King, hence resulting in a stalemate.
If your opponent places their King on a1 / a8 / h1 / h8, the best move is to Place the queen one rank or file away, to cut the King off and preventing escape, while still allowing at least one legal move for the King, to prevent stalemate.
In your case, it's best to place the Queen on g5, so the King has only 2 squares available, h7 and h8. Then bring your King closer and deliver checkmate.
I think a lot of the issue is that many new players learn from other casual players (friends, parents, etc.) who may not have taught them the Three Special Rules. They never actually read the rules or take intro tutorials because they feel they know how to play.
I think a lot of the issue is that many new players learn from other casual players (friends, parents, etc.) who may not have taught them the Three Special Rules. They never actually read the rules or take intro tutorials because they feel they know how to play.
As an example, many people that play the game Monopoly do not know about the housing shortage rule that can be exploited to keep an opponent from building houses or hotels. That can cause problems when a player knowing the rule makes trades on his turn ceding expensive monopolies for cheap ones (plus cash) and builds their new monopolies up but stops construction at four houses each on the cheap territories just to use up virtually all of the houses available. Then the opponent with the cash opts to jump straight to hotels (skipping over all of the houses) and gets blindsided and angry when the first player points out that they have to build the houses first and there are no more available to do that building.
Monopoly is a game that millions of American families and friends have actually played but very few have bothered to really read the rules provided with the game.
It's no favour we'd be doing them, if we don't show them clearly, their attitute is not fit to the situation, maybe next time they register to some scrabble website after watching some Scoobidoo episode featuring that game, they'll read the rules before playing their first game.
Well, maybe they didn't know about them? I already got up to 900 before I learned about en passant.
stalemate