The Mate that wasn't

And thus 90 years of chess history were invalidated by the internet.  Who wants to tell Magnus?

This is a very very interesting concept I've never thought about. You are genius of the day, sir.

Just kidding, whoever captures the King first wins.

In warfare, generally speaking, a king would not be killed. Even if captured he would be allowed to live, being ether imprisoned, released (sometimes), or perhaps held for ransom, but not killed. If chess is a war game then the goal would be to capture, not kill, the king.

You are making the same mistake many newcomers to chess make.

A pinned piece does not mysteriously lose its powers to control a square or squares simply because it is pinned. It only has it's ability to move restricted. In your example the position is checkmate quite simply because the king has no square to move to that is not threatened by white.

Sadly, not surprising.

There is no threat without the ability to move.  To separate the two is pointless.  If the piece cannot move, then it poses no threat, therefore the pinned piece CAN move, if only to capture a king.  Its easy to brush off as a 'newcomer's mistake" because the rules stop the game one move early, but there is a very valid reason for believing it.

Wrong.

Fail.

In the earliest days of modern chess, when rules like "castling" and "pawn advancing two squares on first turn" were being added to the game, one of the variant rules of the time was that a pinned piece could not apply a check.

It's not an unreasonable mistake to make for a novice player as it seems perfectly logical. If a pinned knight can't threaten a pawn, then why should be it able to threaten the king?

The only reason a pinned piece can deliver mate is beacuse if you made the game continue untill you captured the king the side that gave the mate will capture the king first. so in the orgianl diagram it shouldnt be mate because before his king is captured it becomes stale mate

Not unreasonable, but still a mistake. A threat to a pawn does not require immediate action by a player. A threat to a King does.

The current rules are quite clear. A piece, even though pinned, is still able to deliver check/checkmate, or support another piece that is delivering check/checkmate. Why is this so hard to understand.

Wrong again. The reason a pinned piece can deliver mate is because it is within the normal rules for it to do so. You may wish to think in terms of a variation of chess where the king actually gets captured, but this adds nothing to the current rules and only confuses newcomers to the game. I repeat again, a pinned piece loses none of it's abilities to controlcheck other squares, it is only restricted on it's movement.

The original diagram (however unlikely) demonstrates a very clear checkmate. If you believe otherwise you are playing some other game, not chess.

" but this adds nothing to the current rules and only confuses newcomers to the game"

@lagmorph if u actually had to capture the king chess would be different, i.e the orgianl digram would be a draw?

Where is the logic in that argument? Of course if you change the rules so that a board position is a draw, then the board position is a draw.

I could then suggest that the king can have one move per game where he can move to any square on the board he likes. So i move him to g1 to escape check. Makes as much sense as your proposal.

Yes, it will be a draw. This is the "non-royal king" variation I gave somewhere in the first page. Just like most stalemates become losses (because the "stalemated" player is forced to expose the king to attack, and thus loses next move). But again, yes, that variation is not standard chess.

You miss the point Lagomorph.  This isnt a discussion of the rules, this is a discussion of the WHY of the rules, and corner cases they might have missed in their original interpretation.

Chess began as a "capture the king" game.  It was then noticed that its not very fun to lose (or win for that matter) to a king blunder into a capture, so this was made illegal.  As a side effect of that rule however, you suddenly make the last (losing) move of the game(immediately post check-mate) in effect illegal.  Rather than add an exception to the rule for that last move, the game was instead shortened to 'end at checkmate' because 99% of games, it is a forgone conclusion at that point.  All of these rules were added in an attempt to improve the game, without changing it (ie the game is still "capture the king" even if that never occurs anymore).  Unfortunately, there are a few corner cases (such as my example) where the result of the game does change with the rule additions (win instead of draw).

Then, a hundred years later, you get people who have always known the rules as they exist today and never question them or ask why.  Therefore pinned pieces can control a zone because "thats the way it is," instead of realizing that the true reason goes all the way back to the roots of the game, capturing the king is paramount.

[COMMENT DELETED] Double post

KingLarry

I am all in favour of intellectual discussions about what the rules could be, or what they were. But your original post did not do that. The title of your post and its content proposed a different outcome to what most chess players would expect.

You only have to do a search on the forums here to see the number of new to chess posters who are not sure if a pinned piece can defend another piece , or indeed checkmate the opponent to see the confusion.

I am afraid posting in the vein you did without making clear that your arguments are for discussion purposes only will only add to the confusion.

You have now made that clear, so I shall wish you and all others a happy 2015

@kinglarry your last post was very well written.

as long as people admit that having to capture the king is a chess variant then i feel somewhat ok, but upsett that chess isnt what i once thought it was.