The site uses a variant of the USCF rules for Insufficient material. There have been a lot of topics about it and at one point I think erik posted why those options were chosen.
Insufficient material?
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Thank you for the answer!
I'd prefer if there was a button "Increment" which gives you sth like a 2 second increment per move, while offering a draw, and adding 2 minutes to your opponent's clock (I think there is such a rule in a few tournaments I played in), so you could prevent empty timeouts in drawn positions and preventing cases as the knight vs pawn mate.
chess.com often claims there is insufficient material when in reality - with worst possible play by the opponent - a mate would still be possible.
This could lead to a few paradoxical
cases:
Black to move can let his time run out and will get the draw because of insufficient material, when in reality, there is sufficient material after 1...a2 (zugzwang) 2. Nc2#
Also these positions are theoretically possible:
, so a knight or a bishop are sufficient material as long as the opponent has a pawn which he could promote. Note that it doesn't work with rook or queen.On the other hand, in positions like these there is no way to get a mate, while chess.com would think there are some because pawns exist:
It is hard to implement it because every case could be different, but is it possible to protest in some way after losing on time in a position like this?And should one bishop / one kinght count as sufficient material as long as the opponent has certain pieces?