Another new stupid rule in chess

Words of wisdom from the guy with an aversion to reading. I've already said that I don't care one way or another about the stalemate rule, which means I'm not arguing in favor of (or against) changing it. On the other hand, you have evidently devoted your life to arguing [poorly] in favor of keeping a rule that will almost certainly never be changed. It doesn't accomplish anything of course, but hey, it gives you something to do.

Oh yeah.  I forgot that he hasn't devoted his life to arguing in favor of changing the rule.  He has devoted his life to arguing about a rule he cares nothing about.  Well, that certainly makes all the time he has spent worthwhile.  

Again with the failure to read. I'm not just randomly arguing about a rule, I'm arguing about the logic of the rule. Also, arguing, in and of itself, is entertaining, which is why debate clubs and competitions exist, for example. Since arguing, like reading, clearly isn't your forte, I can see why you don't get it.

"En passant came about as an attempt to ensure that the then-new rule which allowed the pawn to move two squares on its first move didn't drastically alter the fundamental nature of the game."

But the rule itself doesn't make sense. How can u take a piece by not moving to the square the piece is on? How can a pawn move diagonally if it's not capturing anything, and then just blast the piece behind it without even moving? That's exactly my point. Making stalemate a win would alter the fundamental nature of the game, which is that u have to attack the king to win, not just trap it. It would have a drastic affect on the game: Insufficient mating material would now be sufficient, pawn endgames would become extremely imbalanced..etc.

 The argument is a question of logic, i.e., whether or not the rule makes sense.

That's just it, the rule does make sense. A player didn't accomplish the objective of the game, therefore why should he get a free win? I know ur saying the opponent can't move, so he forfeits, so even if that's fair, it's unfair to the game as a whole. Just because something isn't perfectly logical IN ITSELF doesn't mean it isn't correct or logical when integrated into the whole.

It is capturing something; it is capturing the pawn as though it had only moved one square instead of two. In any case, if you want to argue about en passant, find someone else to argue with. That's not the argument I'm involved in.

>That's exactly my point. Making stalemate a win would alter the fundamental nature of the game, which is that u have to attack the king to win, not just trap it. It would have a drastic affect on the game: Insufficient mating material would now be sufficient, pawn endgames would become extremely imbalanced..etc.

No, it doesn't alter the fundamental nature of the game, because in this argument, there is no stalemate rule at all, and the question is, what is the logical result of a position in which a player has no legal moves and his king isn't in check? Saying that "making stalemate a win would alter the fundamental nature of the game" is begging the question, which is a fallacy.

>That's just it, the rule does make sense. A player didn't accomplish the objective of the game, therefore why should he get a free win?

For the same reason that any other type of forfeit is a win for the opponent. As I've said about a half dozen times now, the objective of the game is never accomplished in cases of a loss by forfeit, because a loss by forfeit always means that the game ended prematurely, i.e., before the objective could be reached.

It is capturing something; it is capturing the pawn as though it had only moved one square instead of two. In any case, if you want to argue about en passant, find someone else to argue with. That's not the argument I'm involved in.

It's an analogy. If your going to argue that a rule shouldn't exist because it doesn't make sense by itself, u have to look at the bigger picture. That's what I'm saying.

Max, I respect your decision to use logic to discuss chess rules. But wait one second: discussing rules only as an exercise of logical thinking? Is what you want? Or with the purpose of changing the game to make it more interesting / less prone to draws? If it is only an exercise, I have two thoughts: okay, why not, we can also discuss the logic of unbelievable clumpy grammatical rules in a certain language, or the logic of knights as only figures jumping over other pieces.  But now this: how logical is it to move wooden or plastic pieces over a board pretending that this is an extremely important thing. How logical is it to play a game with rules defined in the Middle Age. How logical is it to discuss about things which are not conceived as something to be logic, but as a game, a past time. Pieces of wood having a soul, a game reflecting the  human desire to fight without the risk of killing or be killed,  the human needs to express imagination, creativity, poetry. Let's play tennis again with wooden rackets, serving under hand, wearing white trousers and skirts - let's discuss the logic of driving on the right or left side. Or let's play chess and let such discussions for people who prefer to discuss instead of playing.

Max is reducing the logic too much, and not realizing the implications. Even if all the rules of a game make sense, but if any 2 rules conflict with one another, one or both have to be modified. A rule only makes sense when it makes sense integrated into the game.

There is no rule in chess that states that a player can win by giving his opponent no legal moves. If stalemate was a win, the objective a the game has to be changed to: Checkmate or give your opponent no legal moves.

Max, you're saying that both checkmate and stalemate give the opponent no legal moves, correct? But what about positions, where checkmate is not possible, but stalemate is. Given that checkmate isn't possible, the game is automatically declared a draw, whether the player was going to flag or not, agreed? Insufficient mating material ends the game because checkmate isn't possible, regardless of if the player was going to forfeit next move. That's the inconsistency. Your saying if checkmate is possible then stalemate should also be a win because it gives the opponents no legal moves, just like checkmate, but if mate isn't even possible, u agree that the game should be a draw right, despite the fact that stalemate is theoretically possible. This is the MAIN problem with stalemate being a win.

It actually is the only logical flaw in stalemate being a win (I still disagree anyway).

It is difficult to discuss the logic behind a game. When weaker players complain about stalemate, en passant or other rules I usually say that these are the rules of the game, valid for all players. You have to accept them even if they seem nonsense or unfair.

We were just discussing the logic of the rules, not accepting/rejecting or changing them. I think stalemate should be a draw, because in chess, not being able to make a legal move just like freezes the game and it just shouldn't be a win for either player. There's no way to explain it really. But there would be a flaw if stalemate was a win. That point I brought up in #241.

It's true that both stalemate and checkmate give the opponent no legal moves, though no, I never said that, because it isn't relevant to my argument. In checkmate, the win isn't simply because the opponent has no legal moves, it is because he is in the winning position as specified by the rules (the specified position includes the fact of the king being in check). In other words, the game didn't end prematurely in the case of a checkmate. In the case of a stalemate, the game has ended prematurely due to the player to move, not moving. In this hypothetical game of chess which is exactly like regular chess, sans the stalemate rule, it would have to be decided what the result of this prematurely ended game should be. The logical result is that it is a loss by forfeit for the stalemated player, because neither of his two options (moving or not moving) are legal. 

>But what about positions, where checkmate is not possible, but stalemate is.

What about them? Stalemate isn't a specified winning position. This hypothetical game of chess that we are arguing about doesn't have a stalemate rule at all (thus the question / point of contention: what is the logical result of a stalemate position?), so a position in which the only specified winning position (checkmate) isn't possible is logically a draw. Every time you make an argument which is based on the assumption that a stalemate rule is already in effect, it's a case of begging the question, which is a logical fallacy.

>Given that checkmate isn't possible, the game is automatically declared a draw, whether the player was going to flag or not, agreed? Insufficient mating material ends the game because checkmate isn't possible, regardless of if the player was going to forfeit next move. That's the inconsistency. Your saying if checkmate is possible then stalemate should also be a win because it gives the opponents no legal moves, just like checkmate, but if mate isn't even possible, u agree that the game should be a draw right, despite the fact that stalemate is theoretically possible. This is the MAIN problem with stalemate being a win.

See above.

You didn't consider what I said at all. Stalemate being a win causes a conflict with insufficient mating material draw. Insufficient mating material automatically is a draw, regardless of what stalemate is BECAUSE checkmate isn't possible. So even if stalemate was a win, the game STILL couldn't continue in the case of Insufficient material, unless your saying that stalemate would be a win, but insufficient material would STILL IMMEDIATELY END THE GAME REGARDLESS. And can you just talk like a normal person for once. I get your logic. You don't have to do that for me to understand. It just makes everything more confusing.

Yes, I did, and I told you why it's invalid (begging the question).

>Stalemate being a win causes a conflict with insufficient mating material draw.

Except, stalemate isn't a win, or a loss, or a draw, or anything else other than the name of a type of position, because in this argument, there is no stalemate rule in effect. If you want to argue about what would happen afterward, if a rule were instituted declaring stalemate a win for the player who delivered it, then that's a completely different argument, and one that I'm not interested in because I don't think there should be a rule specifically about stalemate at all. The existing rules of chess (minus the stalemate rule) are already sufficient to logically determine the results of a stalemate position, specifically, the rules which require players to alternate turns with no option to pass, and the rule which makes moving into check illegal. That leaves the stalemated player in a position where no matter what he does, it isn't legal, thus, logically, a loss by forfeit.

>Insufficient mating material automatically is a draw, regardless of what stalemate is BECAUSE checkmate isn't possible. So even if stalemate was a win, the game STILL couldn't continue in the case of Insufficient material, unless your saying that stalemate would be a win, but insufficient material would STILL IMMEDIATELY END THE GAME REGARDLESS. And can you just talk like a normal person for once. I get your logic. You don't have to do that for me to understand. It just makes everything more confusing.

Since my argument is that a stalemated player has logically lost by forfeit, the possibility of a stalemate in an "insufficient mating material" situation is no different than the possibility of any other type of loss by forfeit in the same situation. The player could run out of time for example. It could even be that one of the players would have inevitably time-forfeited, such as 1 second left on his clock compared to 5 minutes on the other player's clock, on the move that insufficient mating material occurs. But that possibility, or even inevitability, doesn't negate that it is logically a draw at that point, because a win due to your opponent forfeiting isn't the winning objective, it is just what happens when one of the players is no longer willing or able to play by the rules, forcing the game to end prematurely. If a result is required, the logical result is loss by forfeit for the player who was no longer willing or able to play by the rules.

The problem though, is that people would claim that insufficient mating material IS NOT A DRAW if stalemate was a win.  They would say: I could force stalemate, so It's not a draw. That's the contradiction.

In this position:

Normally, after the queens were exchanged, the position would be IMMDETIATELY A DRAW by insufficient mating material. However, since white has a sequence of moves that FORCES stalemate, white could win by stalemate. One could declare that it's a draw after the queens were exchanged, but another could claim that white can FORCE stalemate, resulting in black forfeiting and black losing. Players would try to FORCE their opponent to forfeit by stalemate in insufficient positions, but since checkmate is impossible, it's already a draw, so the game couldn't continue to that point anyway; but then it could because stalemate is a win. There's no way to resolve this conflict, so stalemate had to be a draw.

You've essentially just repeated yourself in this post, so my previous reply (#249) still applies. Being able to "FORCE" a stalemate in certain "insufficient mating material" situations is irrelevant, just as it's irrelevant that a time forfeit could be inevitable in certain "insufficient mating material" situations (and an inevitability is a sure thing while an option to force something isn't). The object of the game isn't to end it prematurely, so the possibility or inevitability of it ending prematurely should the game continue, doesn't negate a draw due to insufficient mating material. I've already explained this in post #249.

Excellent point, very convincing! I think this is exactly the contradiction in any try of refutation of the stalemate rule base on logical thinking.