Stalemate needs to be abolished...

This is still the best quote (post #18) of this 1500+ madhouse thread.  Thanks @Estragon.

I personally wasn't complaining about the rules, merely seeking an improvement. And I haven't been in a stalemate situation from either side since I-don't-remember-when. For me, it was purely a argument of rules logic, not how it affected any one player.

But I'd actually agree somewhat, if someone was bitching one way or the other due to the effect of the rule they agreed to play under, I'd say they need to bone up on fair-play competition.

@Estragon (in post #18) was referring to the OP, i.e. @Monster.  Not you @Grobzilla.   Don't worry about it.  @Monster will likely find his way back to this thread, and the whole mess will start anew.

And we will all be SHEEP, yet again.

Lol, ok, @zborg. Yeah, @Monster gets a little fired-up. I agree w/some of his arguments regarding this topic, but think others regarding it are a little crackers.

Sure is fun though...Baa aa aaa...

Either sheep or idiots. Or idiot sheep.

If people complain about getting a draw when they are winning, that proves that all they care about is winning. Maybe you should improve your endgame and try again next time.

I don't think that was what Lasker and Nimzovich were complaining about.  I would guess that they both had endgame technique superior to yours.

I just recently had a game where my opponent tried to trick me into stalemating and I had to notice and work around it. This is part of chess. It's your responsibility to ensure that you don't stalemate. If your position is so much better prove it.

how to deal with stalemate trollers...

You're dumb if you play like that.

another "teasing the stalemate troll "

I thought that's what we'd been doing since this thread was started.

Yep.

Isn't this "teasing" the very thing that gets you into stalemate in the first place?  I won't stop you if you truly enjoy deliberately prolonging a won game, but it seems counter-intuitive.

Nigel Short in his commentary on the candidates tournament is constantly going on about how stalemate is an awful rule when all the many stalemates come up in endgames. eg In Aronian Kramnik.

Looks like my chessbase article has made some waves (if Nigel didnt already feel that way)... the rule change is coming.

So this thread persists still.  But stalemate is here to stay.  In real life and on the real battlefields, sometimes stalemates occur.  So it is only right and proper that in the classical game of chess we have the occasional impasse, or stalemate -- because chess is a microcosm of real battle, or of life itself.

The analogy doesn't work.  Although the metaphor  "stalemate" was borrowed from chess, it means something very different.  When people say a real battle is a stalemate, they do not mean that one side is about to be annihilated and there is nothing they can do about it.  When they say stalemate, they mean a position has been reached where neither side can make progress.  This type of impasse exists in chess and usually results in an agreed draw, but we don't call it stalemate.

Nigel Short hit it on the head when he said, that all stalemate accomplishes is make a very drawish game even more drawish.

Not only does it persist mate, but it's being mirrored right now in a Topic titled "Why Not Take The King"!