Stalemate is the most senseless rule ever

"In my view, calling stalemate a draw is totally illogical, since it represents the ultimate zugzwang, where any move would get your king taken" (GM Kaufman 2009).>>>

What an idiot, then. Zugzwang is where the only move available is a losing move and the losing move enables checkmate.

Well said. Eliminating stalemate would actually make it easier for weaker players to win in positions where they have an advantage, but require some technique. Endgames would just boil down to, "You have an extra pawn? You win."

Take this position, which at first glance looks like a trivially easy win for White. It is, depending on who you ask, but the first move is very important and only one move wins. And it's all because of stalemate. If you take away stalemate, no knowledge or technique is required whatsoever to win this position.  Do you want to play a game where a 1400 and a 2000-rated player have the same chance of winning this endgame? I don't. 

Also, EndgameStudy, nice endgame study.  

Why do we try so hard to capture the opponent's king, but are never allowed?

èse-majesté

There are quite a few of these threads, and I see some good arguments for keeping things the way they are.  For me, the strongest argument is that changing the rule would alter too much endgame theory.  Here are some arguments I've personally never found persuasive:

1.  Explaining the need for the draw by explaining the rules.  We know the rules.  If the rules were changed to say something like "A player wins blah, blah, blah, or if his opponent has no legal move," then this wouldn't even be an arugment.

2.  The current rule gives the weaker side something to play for, makes it more interesting, more fun, etc.  Yes, that's a valid point.  But, resigning the weaker position and starting a new, more balanced game is probably more interesting, fun, etc. (especially if we're actually considering the person who played better).

3.  Any comparison to war, or military strategy, or real life events.  Just no.

4.  You just hate this rule because you screwed up and stalemated your opponent.  Possibly, or the person could just find the rule to be counter intuitive, or illogical.

Not quite. It's only nowadays children aren't watching it on TV while having a snack. This is an interesting argument, though.

Here an excursion through the development of Stalemate with some arguments for and against the rule: https://www.chess.com/article/view/stalemate2

Excellent! But isn't it funny that those who want to change the rules aren't very good at the game? The last World Champion who suggested rule changes was Capablanca - & his main worry was the increasing number of draws between strong masters. He & others feared chess would suffer a "draw death," but it had nothing to do with stalemate.

If it needed changing for the benefit of the game, I'd suppose at least some of the world-class players would have actively campaigned for it. Sure, a few titled players will entertain the idea in an interview, but if they were serious, they'd be louder.

Thanks for the info. Being from Spain I trust you know what you're talking about. I did a quick check, and bullfighting is legal in Texas (the only U.S. state to allow it, but it's not too popular there). Bullfighting also takes place in Mexico, and probably several other countries too.

Luckily in chess we don't have problems with raging angry bulls. And we don't risk our lives either. But I still like winning and losing is no fun.

You could say that the king has found refuge in safe territory so he lives to fight another day.

I believe the original post is correct and the rule should be changed back so there is no such thing as a stalemate, why be so dogmatic about it??? A winning position should be considered winning by all the rules of logic, after all the side that is ahead has outplayed the other.

Again, same problem. 

We are not going to throw out 500 years of endgame theory, because a few noobs were too lazy to pick up a chess book.

A "winning position" in no way equates to a win . . . only checkmate, resignation,  time or, in very special cases, adjudication determine that.

C8=R  bec. if C8=Q, then the rook will move in between, forcing your king to capture with stalemate. I think this position is called, like, the schwanza position(?) or something.

Uhhhh....isn't checkmate just trapping  the King? 

I regard a stalemate as a loss for the stalemated player.

You're in good company, a number of today'shigh ranked players believe stalemate should be a win like it used to be back in the 19th century. 

" Grandmaster Larry Kaufman writes, "In my view, calling stalemate a draw is totally illogical, since it represents the ultimate zugzwang, where any move would get your king taken" (Kaufman 2009)"

The stalemate rule is designed to keep a chess game at least partially exciting even after a huge material imbalance.  It performs this function adequately.  If you don't like stalemates, play better.

That's the case during blitz, or bullet games. If you're playing rapid games and accidentally,  falling into a stalemate trap, then it simple isn't fair.

Making mistakes isn't fair?