Should we get rid of stalemate?

"In my view, calling stalemate a draw is totally illogical, since it represents the ultimate Zugzwang, where any move would get your king taken. Until around the year 1500 a stalemated player lost. Probably the draw rule was added with the advent of the powerful queen since draws became rare, but that is obviously no longer true in top-level play."
-GM Larry Kaufman

In the Fritz database I found 884 tournament games between 1972 and 2013 that ended in stalemate where both players had an Elo rating of at least 2300. The highest rated of these games was in 2011, Vassily Ivanchuk (2775) vs Magnus Carlsen (2826).

When a king is in stalemate maybe you could do what they do in golf when a ball is in the water - they drop the ball. Why not just have the player close his eyes and drop his king somewhere random?

GM Kaufman is mistaken or just talking off the top of his head.  Old Arabic rules in shatranj gave victory to the one *giving* stalemate because the King was actually either captured or bared. When the rules changed in medieval times wherein mate meant the King could be captured on the next move but never actually captured, things were seen in a different light.  In France, the rules weren't consistent.  Some ms showed stalemate to be a draw while others show the stalemated party forfeited the move and the  *giver* of stalemate moved again - and again and again until the King was release from the stalemate. In Italy stalemate had always been treated as a draw. Until the 1600s in Spain, where Arabs had greater influence, it had been considered a win for the player *giving* the stalemate. In both England and Russia, up until the beginning of the 19th century,  stalemate had been considered a loss for the player *giving* the stalemate. This rule started to change in England around 1808, when John Jacob Sarratt questioned it. The advent of the Queen had little or nothing to do with changes in the stalemate rule.

Cessolis described stalemate as a draw. Ruy Lopez called stalemate  (called "mate ahogado" by Fennolar in his 1475 poem "Scachs d'amor") and said it won the stalemater only half the stakes.

I don't see the contradiction between GM Kaufman - "a stalemated player lost" and batgirl's "victory to the one giving stalemate." It sounds to me like they are saying the same thing - the player delivering stalemate wins.

I think chess should have the equivalent of a NHL shoot out, they know how boring ties are, and they even have fist fighting during the game!

In case of a stalemate each player will have a blitz session where one side has a K+N+B against a lone king.  The player giving stalemate has the knight and bishop.  If they can't do checkmate in fifty moves then the player with the lone king wins.

I wonder how many chess players can do that. I suspect its a pretty low percentage.

GM Kaufman: "Until around the year 1500 a stalemated player lost."

Victory to the one giving stalemate was only a rule in shatranj and in Spanish chess in areas where the Arab held sway where the rule gave way to a draw much later than the 1500s as GM Kaufman stated.  In all other places than this one select area stalemate was NOT a win for the side giving stalemate.

Where is this the same thing?

even when youare a piece down there is still hope for a stalemate,

I like the free moves for the giver idea.

Is it even possible to change the rules of chess any longer? Before, I would imagine it was not so difficult since chess way played by a relatively small group of people.

Thanks, I got it now, batgirl.

I should have searched it myself.  That is more than I expected.  I found 668 once eliminating blitz. I could not fing the Vassily vs Magnus 2011 that was a stalemate.  I did find a Kramnik game that was interesting:

The game went 48 moves in a dead drawn position before stalemate.  This level of stubborness is rare in high level chess. 

Even broadening the filter to over 2000 Elo, we are talking about 1300 odd games in 41 years.  For about 30 games a year of which a majority are likely completely drawn anyway, I still see no justification for a broad change to the laws of chess.  Would those 30 games scored differently improve chess or their individual tournaments?  I doubt it.  Tournament organizers can score stalemates any way they like.  Most don't seem to bother though.

@kleelof

It's possible to make a variant.

Or to play someone OTB by whatever rules you want.

The 50 move rules seems to get changed every couple decades or so.

I'd like to see a game where you switch sides every 3 moves.

Each side tries to leave his pieces in as bad a position as possible - what a nightmare.

and play it for stakes.

Indeed.

But you win/lose depending on the side you are on when the game finishes.

So it would not really benefit you to make weak moves if it allows your opponent to win while you have a specific color.

Of course this probably would not be accepted in serious play. But perhaphs a good exercise in learning how to think about what your opponent is doing.

Improve your play. If you are a jacker, learn to improve. Keep deleting rules because of lack of skill and you will end up with tiddlywinks.

Don't hate the game, hate the player!

Hey Munterizer, I think you're on to something there; tiddlywinks.

Is it possible to draw in tiddlywinks?  I think chess would have to add rules and a language of gibberish to get to tiddlywinks:  http://www.etwa.org/tactics/strategy.html

It is very hard to get rid of a rule that is based it a concrete and legal outcome of the game.  There are only three possible outcomes or four if one differentiates between a draw and a stalemate. 

Statistically in the Fritz database, of all drawn games at the FM level and above 1 one out of every 500 may end in a stalemate. 

Really, breaking a pencil or running out of ink while recording moves is more likely to affect the outcome of a tournament game than a rule change specific to stalemates.