There certainly are books already dedicated to good defensive play, and such books should have a section on stalemate as a good defensive resource. "The Greatest Chess Stalemates" sounds like a great idea though.
Regardless, the type of stalemates that Monster is most concerned with seems to be those that involve one player having a significant material advantage, I.e. ones where the "winning" side is in time trouble and/or goes into autopilot and makes the mistake o giving stalemate. Of course, no books should be written about such situations since they are reliant on the dominating side making a blunder. And an obvious one at that.
There have been books written on how to play lost positions. The author's of various books have talked about how to play for Swindles and Stalemates. I know John Nunn has talked about playing for Swindles in some of his books. Most people wait too late to start thinking about a swindle or stalemate trap. You need to start the moment you realize that you are losing. I have read specifically how to play for a stalemate, but I don't remember the exact book. One of the biggest points, is to hold on to a good checking piece. A Queen is ideal, but a rook can often manage it, once you have gotten rid of your other pieces and have your pawns immobilized, you start checking and looking for forced stalemates. If your opponent has been playing for mate, it is often the case you can make checks where your checking piece can't be captured because it would result in stalemate.
Simply put "Stalemate" in chess occurs: "when a player, whos turn it is to move, has no legal moves left to make... this is deemed a draw".
Consider a few arguements for why the stalemate rule should be abolished.
And then we will provide a simple, elegant alternative solution.
So then, firstly lets look at why we should abolish stalemate?
* Stalemate used to be a win, until it was changed to be a draw. (Ill leave it to you to do research on it if your interested in it)
* Contradictory and obscure nature of the current rules
ie
1) You must *move* when it is your turn (you cannot "pass" your move). Even if it will mean "suicide" you *must move* if you *can*.
(BUT if you cannot move, its a draw!) This is a contradiction... ie if you can move in zugzwang you "*must move* and "fall on the sword"
*But* if you *can't move* (which is the highest level of zugzwang) you "get out of jail free card" with a draw. (also we later argue that the king should be allowed to step into check, so this zugzwang can be exploited)
2) The clock in chess is the "life span of the king!" If he lives life burning both ends of the candle he will die an early death... chess is all about whos king dies FIRST. If a player cannot legally move, we should "fall back" on the clock to decide who wins. (ie the clock of the player who cant move will run out because he cant move!)
3) It is illegal to *move* into check (ie even though the enemy king is all surrounded in all out attack, he cant be killed *because* he cant "legally" step into check). This is like a lawyer agruing for silly legal technicalities to get his defendent off the hook, when everyone knows the logical outcome of the courtcase. (why is this the case? We will come back to this in the 2nd part of this write-up)
* If you cannot move, you are powerless, without options, restricted, oppressed and dominated and violating the spirit of the "you must move and not pass your move" rule. Why should you get 1/2 a point?
* So we see the whole plan and point of the game is to put an attack on the king (directly or indirectly ie queenside play first)
But then the stalemate rule comes along (*just when your about to do that*) and says:
"ok... but dont attack the king too well! Dont do your job too well, be careful to prance about the king when you are totally dominating him" otherwise it could all end easily in a draw! Stalemate is the ultimate mating net... The stronger the attack you mount on the lone king, the more chance of stalemate.
* Making a stalemate a win would in no way make endgame play any easier. In fact, it would probably make it harder.
It's true that K+P vs K would be easier, but K+R+P vs K+R would be tougher. In general, K+R+P vs K+R would still be drawn for most positions that are drawn under the current rules, but make a stalemate a win, and a fair percentage of K+R+P vs K+R become winnable.
To give another example, K+B vs K or K+N vs K would now be winnable in some situations, but not the general case -- everything would depend on how close the opposing king is to the corner.
* chess is, by nature, already very drawish to begin with... we dont need to give players (who have been outplayed) cheap tricks for more draws ?
* Capablanca, Reti, Lasker, Nimzowitsch and many other top players have argued for a change as well.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#Proposed_rule_change
* an example game, where a very high level player escapes after being outplayed http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7463
*Ive taught many people chess... they all laugh at the stalemate rule as illogical. Probably you did too when you first saw it...
* rules change all the time in other games (eg soccer offside... ) in chess as well... we have many different time controls etc.
* Some argue Draws by forcing stalemate can be "artistic". Agreed, however, winning by forcing stalemate is also "artistic".
Solution: (ok lets not be so negative, lets give a positive solution as well!)
The goal of chess should simply be "to *capture!* the king."
It should also be legal to "step into check" (in which case the opponent would capture the king on the next move and win)
This simple change, would solve the whole stalemate problem and make the chess rules more logically consistent.
Its much more logical, elegant and simple to have the one rule "capture the king and you win"... as opposed to the current definition of mate: "where the king cant legally move without moving into check" (in the rule we are proposing it is already implicit ... that you shouldnt move your king into check, why do we put silly restrictions on it... if the opponent wants to move his king where it will be captured OR he is forced to..... let him! Why make it illegal ?)...
I have to say you make a solid argument. Never thought of it before.