The message comes when BOTH sides have insufficient material. In this case, the only one (according to the comp.) with insufficient material was me, because his pawn might promote. So he ran out of time because if I won on time but had insufficient material it would be a draw.
Knight Checkmate - Running out of time on purpose?
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aNoviceBlunderer wrote:
"In this case, the only one (according to the comp.) with insufficient material was me,"
I highly doubt that is the way things are done. Post the game so we can see what happened. Insufficient material would end the game for both. It is not based on one side.
With your logic, the King vs. King and Queen endgame would be drawn, because one side has insufficient material...
Then my original post has been proven correct. The material on the board was sufficient to mate, yet it says insufficient material. Both sides together have sufficient material, as there is a mating position.
Oct 13, 2018
0
#5
when I googled the scenario, the first result says "Answers. According to USCF rule14E2, if your opponent has only a kingand knight (and no forced mate) and you run out of time, the game is drawn. According to FIDE rules, the game is not drawn if there is any legal sequence of moves leading to mate."
The “insufficient material” definition is a bit fuzzy. Chess.com implements it to mean a PIECE COUNT which is insufficient to FORCE mate. Material which could potentially give mate, but only by opponents mistakes (“help mate”) are considered insufficient material and the result will be a draw if the opponent times out. This applies even in the odd situation where a forced mate exists with what would otherwise be insufficient material. The server goes by a strict piece count, regardless of the board position. A good argument could be made that this is not right, buts that’s how it works here
Very interesting. But I think "help mates" should be allowed because the opponent can make a blunder, and a blunder is part of the game. Anyway, it isn't very common, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal in tournament play...
Shadow_Dragon_86 wrote:
aNoviceBlunderer wrote:
"In this case, the only one (according to the comp.) with insufficient material was me,"
I highly doubt that is the way things are done. Post the game so we can see what happened. Insufficient material would end the game for both. It is not based on one side.
With your logic, the King vs. King and Queen endgame would be drawn, because one side has insufficient material...
If the person with a king and queen runs out of time it is a draw because of insufficient material, since he can not be mated by the player who has only a king. If the person with the lonely king runs out of time he has lost the game since he can easily be mated by the player who has a king and a queen.
Yes. That is exactly right 
.
I had similar nonsense. Claimed this was a stalemate. I may be a bit out if practice but I'm pretty sure I was winning. Two queens and all. But like most chess institutions chess.com is all about driving people away from chess, not into it.
Guess I can't post a screen shot. Whatever. More dumb rules.
Guess I can't post a screen shot. Whatever. More dumb rules.
I think chess.com does it like this- insufficient material vs time out=draw. Does that cover every scenario where a check mate is possible, no. As shown by your game there are a few instances that slip through, I believe the same thing that happened to you could happen with 2 knights and king vs black king and pawn.
Yeah, that may be a possibilty. People have gotten mad about that as well... Luckily, as you said, the timeout vs insufficient material covers most cases.
GRockwell wrote:
I had similar nonsense. Claimed this was a stalemate. I may be a bit out if practice but I'm pretty sure I was winning. Two queens and all. But like most chess institutions chess.com is all about driving people away from chess, not into it.
I found the game on your list of games:
https://www.chess.com/live/game/3138668137?username=grockwell
And yes, that is a stalemate, so that is totally correct. Black's last move was 35... gxh6?
This move prevents white from moving his king to g5 which was white's only possibility before black played gxh6. Thus a stalemate did in fact occur. A pity you didn't check mate him.
Oct 13, 2018
0
#16
BlueKnightShade wrote:
GRockwell wrote:
I had similar nonsense. Claimed this was a stalemate. I may be a bit out if practice but I'm pretty sure I was winning. Two queens and all. But like most chess institutions chess.com is all about driving people away from chess, not into it.
I found the game on your list of games:
https://www.chess.com/live/game/3138668137?username=grockwell
And yes, that is a stalemate, so that is totally correct. Black's last move was 35... gxh6?
This move prevents white from moving his king to g5 which was white's only possibility before black played gxh6. Thus a stalemate did in fact occur. A pity you didn't check mate him.
Concur. Black missed both 35...Qa5# and 35...Ra5#. Did take 2 seconds when had 6+ minutes on clock though, so the clock was preserved.
Recently I played a game where I could possibly get into a checkmate with a knight because they had an a-file pawn. Knowing that they might get checkmated, the opponent purposely ran out of time. Of course, it became a draw. I don't really care about this game in certain, but I'm confused to why they call it insufficient material in this case. Here is an example of how it could be done.
It is not forced, but that doesn't mean it is insufficient material.
I've drew two games to this (although it is in bullet so I guess it doesn't really matter
), so I would like a justification to why this is happening.