The 50 move rule shouldn't exist!

Good grief, man!  Obviously he would've lost anyway.  He was down two pieces!

It depends. 9 bishops of the same color can't win vs lone king, but bishop+knight always wins.

Yeah, I know.  Drawing that game when I was up nine bishops was frustrating!  The bishop and knight are usually about equal but honestly, I would've given up two of those bishops for a single knight in that endgame.  I'm not exaggerating!  I really would've.

LOL

I don't know where they got 50 anyway? 100 is the 1st number that comes to mind. Did they just like say oh 100 is too much, so slice it in half to make it 50. Well sorry, but not everything is reasonable cause it's associated with a very divisible number in the base 10 number system.

Exactly, so if they figured 50 cause it was a benchmark figure, then why wasn't it just 100?

Yeah there is:    80.   If they think 50 is too small and 100 is too big, why not simply 80 (75 harder to count). And if they insist on making benchmark figure, then just round to 100 and that's it. 100 isn't that many moves, especially in blitz. They just play it out and it takes a few more minutes. Big Deal.

77 is the obvious number,

How about 111 moves?

How about 666?

But, really, 120 seems like the best option.

By the way, one of the best topics so far!

How about simply 1000 moves. Given that some endgames can take 550+ moves with best play to force mate, the only reasonable rule is 1000 moves. Simple and effective.

That's not the point. If there's win that requires more than 50 moves, it should be allowed. Whether the players calculate it or not is irrelevant to the rules of the game. The rules of the game have to take ALL possibilities into account, which includes mates that take over 500 moves.

I think 1000 moves would be overkill for endings with 4 men or less. Here 50 moves gives a 50% margin for error against perfect play which seems to work reasonably well. Nobody wants to be stuck in a KNNK ending for 1000 moves before they can call it a draw. 

The 50 move rule is just out of date. I would guess it was arrived at as the perceived maximum number of moves for KBNK + 50%, on the assumption that KBNK would be as complicated an ending as anyone could handle accurately. But people can now play endgames reasonably accurately that take  much longer.

I would suggest a sliding scale rule that depends on the maximum k-move rule that would be required for n remaining men+50% (rounded up). This would give a  42 move rule for 3 man endings, a 50 move rule for 4 man endings and other figures that would need to be extracted from DTC EGTBs for higher numbers of men.

Haworth's law (https://content.iospress.com/articles/icga-journal/icg36407) gives an estimate of how the maximum number of moves to mate increases with the number of men. If one makes the (dubious) assumption that the number of moves required in the k-move rule increases at the same rate, then when the EGTBs run out (currently above 7) you could just multiply the highest number so far by the cube root of 10 for each extra man.

That way you should get enough moves within the k-move rule to finish any ending with a 50% leeway, but without an impracticably high value for the endgames with a small number of men for which the rule was originally designed. 

Doing all that is unnecessary. Just let the games continue and see what happens. Either have no rule or make it 1000. BTW KNN vs K endgame IS a draw, and the players would agree to a draw. If I had the king and my opponent was trying to mate me with 2 knights, I would be laughing the whole time while I randomly move my king around. I'd be happy to do it with 5 seconds on the clock.

@EndgameStudy Saying "that's not the point" [post #210] followed by reiterating your own particular argument for the umpteenth time is not fair debating. I, for one, accept that you have a point, namely that the 50 move rule denies a win for some theoretically won endgames which demonstrably require more than that number without pawn moves or captures to win. You're right. But your point is only one of many which have been made in this thread. Most of the other points made support the 50 move rule or a variation on the rule. There is no reason why your point stands out and eclipses everyone else's.

It stands out because everyone isn't accepting that just because certain endgames or the ability to calculate really far ahead are rare doesn't mean u don't have to allow for them. The rules of the game have to take all possiblities, no matter how rare, into account. That's the point everyone is missing. Also people haven't addressed a few of my other points:

1. Other moves, such as castling and double check, can make progress in a game despite not being pawn moves or captures

2. People try to use the "rule" when they know they'll be mated in 2 or 3 moves, in which case the game is NOT a useless random draw, but a WIN for one player.

3. Making specific move rules for particular endgames is even more impractical. Not only would one have to calculate all that, but have to know which endgame corresponds to which rule? You either go with the longest rule and apply that to ALL endgames or not have the rule at all.

4. 50 is too low for any endgame. u cannot leave a 20 move margin of error for a complex endgame. One mistake can result in having to spend another 10 moves to correct it.

5. The argument that players will get tired and will make a mistake. 1st of all that applies to both players, so it's fair. 2nd, if a player makes a mistake after x number of moves, he made a mistake. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was because of time pressure, exhaustion..etc. Maybe he didn't know how to play THAT POSITION, the move that it occurred on doesn't matter! 3rd, Anyone can get tired at any point in the game, from calculating a complicated middlegame for example.

6. No one is realizing that the TIME CONTROL is also a factor in long games. 30 second increments don't make sense because in a knight and bishop endgame for example, if I was down to 5 seconds, all I'd have to do is make 10 random moves to boost me up to 5 minutes and then I'm ok again