The 50 move rule shouldn't exist!

That's because you're meant to think about your moves. Time isn't the problem. Being forced to play pointless chess is.

Who are "they" by the way? Are you talking about FIDE or specific tournament organizers? 

It's the other way around. The endgame is where you need time to calculate. Time IS the problem. Everyone cares about the tournament running smoothly and having time for breaks in between. Don't have 6 hour games then! Instead, they worry about a useless endgame that might be going on for a half hour.

If you're worried about the time you get to calculate in an endgame during a tournament, then it's the thirty second increment you should be complaining about not the 50 move rule. The 50 move rule has nothing to do with time. It's designed to allow a player to terminate the game in a draw when play is pointless but his opponent will not agree a draw.

Your point that it sometimes terminates games that are not pointless is valid, but time is a red herring.

So making the limit at least 100 moves for all endgames accomplishes the same thing, so does 1,000 or 10,000 moves. They all stop useless play at some point.

I like how FIDE is so conservative. They discover some endgames take much longer than 50 moves to win, so instead of raising it to the next obvious figure, 100, they raise it to only 75. They aren't even willing to raise to a nice even 100.

Making it 100 doesn't accomplish the same thing, at least not in KQNKRBN and no doubt the same will apply to 1000 for higher numbers of men (and quite possibly 10,000). 

Making it 50 with any number of automatic extensions if progress is made would allow any game that is not pointless to continue as long as necessary (in terms of moves) while avoiding making 1000 moves in pointless situations.

I wonder what the longest DTA mate in ANY Endgame, pawns or not. If u have too many pieces, they'll either:

1. Pieces will get traded rapidly and cancel out.

2. There will be even quicker mates and wins due to extreme amounts of material on both sides

That's what I said earlier on. Take the longest DTA in an endgame and round UP to the next hundred, and make that the rule for THAT endgame

100 is still too much for KNNK. 

Why make it so complicated? You seemed to agree with my "no progress" rule idea in #505, why have you gone back to fixed limits on endgames. If some hypothetical person learned to play your 545 to mate position but could only manage it in 601 moves against an EGTB, would you rob him of victory?

You could even simplify it by dropping any mention of irreversible moves for positions with less than 8 men. These were included in the original 50 move rule to identify progress, but now the EGTBs will tell you that.

EndgameStudy wrote:

That's what I said earlier on. Take the longest DTA in an endgame and round UP to the next hundred, and make that the rule for THAT endgame

I was referring to your immediately preceding post which contradicts what you said earlier on.

I don't think anybody has yet worked out the exact maximum DTM in KQRRBBNNKQRRBBNN (all the rooks this time). 

I doubt the analysis. Why would that not be already apparent with 7 men?  Haworth's law suggests an increase by a factor of 10 for each extra 3 pieces.

My 2 points in my previous posts probably prove that law wrong past a certain point, as endgames with too many pieces will end up winning easier or simplifying down into endgames with fewer pieces. Probably after a certain number of pieces, it levels off, or drops rapidly.

Ur right, nevermind. How do you know if moves are progress or not though. The logic of these Moves in these hundreds of move tablebases are extremely subtle

See para. 4 in post #471. It's automatic. The third party who decides the claim doesn't even need to know the moves.

So the directors would have to have tablebases with them at all times and be ready to plug in positions, moves, and evaluate them. Seems a bit complicated

They just need an internet connection. 

Unless the players are marooned on a desert island and they can't find a friendly Man Friday with a cellphone, that should never be a problem.

How long does it take to set up a KBNK position with drag and drop?

Cool, now we just have to convince FIDE and the USCF.

Actually, there should be a sensor and computer under every tournament board that calculates the progress or not.

I was suggesting the rule as a basic rule (tournament or friendly). Schoolkids might find that too hard on their pocket money. You need to win the lottery just to get one of those sets of electronic chess pieces.

Does USCF still have a 50 move rule in the basic rules (or a repetition rule)?