Stalemate needs to be abolished...

I admire your sheer grit, @PawnPromoter.  More power to you.  

the suspense is electrifying!

@zborg lol; thanks. Something tells me Monster will come up with a rebuttal. He never fails to.

This thread, if it were a chess game, would definitely look like DonJuan's above pic

Yes and it should not. You win the game by mating. You loose by being mated. If the game has to stop without one of those, it is called a draw.

One of the best "summing up" in about 1400 posts.  Read closely and learn.

Zugswang = ''compulsion-to-move''. The move has to be made.

Stalemate  = ''inability-to-move-legally''. The move cannot be made.

Yeah, Z the problems start like often in life, when you want to determine responsibilities and blame. Big discussions on wheter A or B is responsible for stalemate solve nothing. No mate equals no win and you split the points and go for your next game...

I concur.  Anything not mate is something else.

Originally I was all for making a Stalemate a win for the giver, but I've been swayed. I now settle on .5 win for the giver.

Possible Chess game results (proposed):

Win/Lose by Mate or Resignation or Loss on Time or Rules infraction = 1-0 or 0-1

Draw (in all of its forms) = .5-.5

Stalemate (for the giver) = .5-0 or 0-.5

No contest or anullment or etc. = 0-0

Without even going into the myriad arguments, doesn't this just "look" right, in a game theory fashion?

Reti suggested having knights and bishops trade places in the initial set up.  His suggestion has little to do with this thread.  Capablanca had invented Capablanca chess earlier, but really started pushing it after his match with Alekhine.  Alekhine had surprised him with a win early  in the match, and thereafter played for draws. Capablanca found he could do little to stop him from drawing.  Alekhine had never beaten Capablaca before their match and never beat him again until the very last game they played when both were clearly over the hill.

It looks to me like your suggestion would result in a deflation of the available rating points.  The points awarded need to total 1.0.  Why not .75-.25 in favor the giver.  

The giver (or deliverer) of stalemate should consider himself lucky to get 1/2 in my opinion; definitely doesn't deserve .75

Sometimes it's not luck, PP. If a player is in a losing situation and sees an opportunity to salvage a draw, it's considered the right play.

Agree; I'm saying 0.5 is practically a gift to the player who stalemates (not the player who was stalemated.) Making sure your opponent has a legal move is not that difficult to do, even with little time on the clock. Most tournaments I've heard of have a time control with a 5-second delay so that makes avoiding stalemate in a tournament game even easier.

You miss the whole point.  We are not talking about blundering into stalemate.    Many endgames are drawn because of the stalemate rule.  For instance you cannot checkmate with 2 Knights + King vs. King because of the stalemate rule.  A King + Queen vs. King + knight pawn on the 7th is a draw because of the stalemate rule.  There are many endgames where the superior side cannot make progress because of the stalemate rule.  Yet the superior side has clearly outplayed his opponent.   Nimzovich said chess under the current rules is like a race in which you had to win by 10 seconds or its a draw. 

You have got your head wrapped up with the idea that the debate over the stalemate rule is about not being able to checkmate with superior forces.  This rarely happens in grandmaster chess.   We are talking about being able to force a stalemate when there is insufficient force to force a checkmate but a stalemate can be forced.  Emanuel Lasker thought a Stalemate should be scored .8 - .2.    You can have a different view point, but at least see the argument and don't get hung up on someone stalemating due to incompetence.

Think I misunderstood what you said - if you meant luring your opponent into stalemating you is a skill, then I can see what you mean, but I think it's always possible to avoid giving stalemate, though you may have to give up your last pawn to avoid it (in a K vs. K+p endgame.) Either way, the result's still 1/2

It is possible to avoid stalemate, the issue is that in many endgames it is impossible for the side that has outplayed his opponent to make progress because of the stalemate rule.  Lasker felt that should be worth  a .8 win.  I don't know of any games where Lasker blew a won game because he blundered into  a stalemate so its not a question of Lasker being mad because he accidently stalemated someone which is the argument said over and over again on this thread.

It's debating six vs. half a dozen. A player with a king and two knights vs. king can't checkmate his opponent and also can't lose, so the game's an automatic draw. I don't know anyone who would play it out. In your other example, is it a stalemate only with correct play by the side with less material? If so, it's theoretically possible that the side with a material advantage could still win so the game still would be worth playing out

I don't know what thread you've been reading but the arguments for keeping stalemate 1/2 on this thread have gone far beyond "Oh you just want to change the rule cause you blew a win." Though Monster himself admitted (I think it was in his first post) that his overlooking stalemate and blowing a win *was* the reason he wanted to abolish stalemate.

And quoting Lasker isn't all that convincing when another famous GM compared stalemate to zugzwang (as pointed out by another poster) when the two are completely different