Stalemate is the most senseless rule ever

FYI:  The above quote seems to be where the "stalemate was changed" info came from on this thread.  I haven't actually researched it for accuracy.

Boy, I'm glad that FIDE isn't run by chess.com's trolls.

Obviously, someone blew a won game with stalemate. When I'm in a lost position, I look for stalemate or a perpetual check.

During the 1600s and 1700s, in England for certain, stalemate was considered a win for the side who was stalemated.  This was changed right at the turn of the 19th century. It has nothing to do with Italy who never "codified chess," something that would have been impossible during the 13th century. The theory is that that treatment of stalemate was a vestigial remnant from Chaturanga and arrived in England via a Northern route out of Russia.  It was first noted in 1614 and virtually eliminated in 1808.  So, the "change" was never from the one giving stalemate winning to a draw, but rather from the one being stalemated to a draw - an completely different scenario to which the person I answered want to revert.

BTW, chess was codified in the late 19th century - Italy, wanting to retain free-castling, was the main holdout for universal codification.

Sorry, I confused you with the Dubious duck. But it is basically the same, all "ducks" on this forum are equally stupid. 

To the couple of geniuses who think I made this post because I caused a stalemate and I am butthurt about it, please stop saying such ridiculous stuff. 

It has actually been very few times (Most, if not all, of them in bullet) where some of my games ended in a stalemate. And actually some games have ended in stalemate in my favor. 

So no dummies, this is not a "butthurt" post. This is a very legit and serious argument about how senseless is that rule. 

Its not senseless. It is in fact the central driving point behind a great deal of endgame and even  late middle game strategies. 

In the past Stalemate has been treated 4 different ways depending on where and when it was played.

1. The player who can't legally move his king, loses.

2. The player who can't legally move his king, wins. 

3. The player who can't legally move doesn't get to move and the other player gets to move again.

4. The game is a draw.

Since chess was a game to simulate a war or battle I would say only number 1 or 3 is a logical.

btickler,

Since you're so evolved and are perfectly happy with draws, why not take up drawing? As chess was/is an old game of war simulation, I'm surprised someone as evolved as you even plays the game! How can you enjoy moving pieces of combat? How can you live with yourself simulating battle and violence? Does it pain you when you take another's piece. Don't you feel unevolved, murderous and primordial?

It is not a senseless rule. If you leave the king nowhere to move but it is not in check, you have won nothing. I may be a patzer, but I know not to put myself in that position. We can't change chess rules because you don't like them. The beauty of this game is the rules have been the same for hundreds of years, and yet there are endless possibilities in every game. Stalemate is just one of the things we must understand as chess players. Railing against stalemate is like jousting against windmills -- or complaining we don't like that the color of the sky generally is blue.

The rules have not been the same for hundreds of years. The Queen had limited movement. Nowadays USCF rules are different from FIDE rules.

Chess' connection to "war" is incidental and several layers of abstraction removed from anything approaching the real games of war...i.e. games involving logistics, the backbone of war prior to the modern age.

There is no modern connection between chess and "battle", and trying to promote this or that rule to hold to this notion is ridiculous.

  The player who can't move without moving into check should forefeit his move and the other person should be able to move again until he finishes him off or unless a draw by number of moves or insufficient material happens.

Make that 5.  It was also treated as less than a win, but not a draw. In today's parlance, perhaps ¾ pts.

HJR Murray wrote:

"Historically chess must be classed as a game of war. Two players direct a conflict between two armies of equal strength upon a field of battle, circumscribed in extent, and offering no advantage of ground to either side. The players have no assistance other than that afforded by their own reasoning faculties, and the victory usually falls to the one whose strategical imagination is the greater, whose direction of his forces is the more skillful, whose ability to foresee positions is the more developed."

But while it can be looked upon in that light, and, while people have used chess in war analogies and sometimes even demanded that military leaders (or even knights) learn the game, it's certainly not a game of war, neither in logic nor in practice. 

I liken the idea of forcing generals to play Chess to the way HR depts force employees to take Myers-Briggs tests...it's completely misguided and only someone who is less than competent would seek to rely on something that they don't understand has no real relation to what they are trying to accomplish.

To OP:

I read a summary by a boy who writes in this site - can't remember his username unfortunately. He wrote elegantly and eloquently. I will use his reasoning, even though his conclusion is opposite to mine. 

You say that the object of the game is to capture the king - no it isn't. It is to CHECKMATE the king. To reach a situation where you're attacking it and it can't stop the attack on the next move. 

Moving into check is illegal. 

In stalemate there is no checkmate - and the opponent can't step into check. 

The game can't continue - but you didn't checkmate. 

- - - - - - - - - - - 

If the object of the game is to checkmate - stalemate as a draw is very logical 

If the object of the game is to capture the king - stalemate should win for the player who forces it. 

Saying that checkmate is the object of the game BECAUSE you get to capture the king next move is conjecture. There is no next move - the game is over because its object was reached - and that is checkmate.

There's also the idea that some generals seem to believe their military prowess confers upon them a high aptitude for chess: see Napoleon and Winfield Scott.

While war is not chess, and chess is not war, they are often used as analogies for one another. For example, it's been said that while Putin plays chess, Trump plays checkers.

And that, for whatever reason, is a very hard concept for many to grasp.

As a vet and a chess player, I'm here to state categorically that they have nothing to do with each other.

It continues as an analogy because people mistakenly think that strategic thinking from one domain to another is a transferable skill.