Why stalemate should be a win.

I know it's not; it's mate-in-1 if it's Black's move and mate-in-2 if it's White's move.   So, why does it say DRAW?

It's a draw if you extend the definitions of checkmate and stalemate one extra move. Any of black's moves (well, there's only one) allows white to checkmate, but white does not have checkmate if black doesn't move. Just like in stalemate white can capture the king with any move, but can't capture the king with no move.

If Black refuses to move (at anytime) there can be no checkmate physically, but the checkmate exists nonetheless. In stalemate, Black, or whoever, doesn't refuse to move - he can't move within the laws of the game - and checkmate doesn't exist.  

And again, this is arbitrary.

You define the laws of the game to not allow moves that let your king be captured.

You could similarly restrict moves that allow you to immediately be checkmated, and in the position you would say that black has no legal moves.

Or we could say the King can run away, so he can fight another day... but we don't.  The rules were arbirarily aggreed upon, but they are still the rules and they are also codified so that the core rules are, or should be, universal.  Because something is arbitrary doesn't make it bad, wrong or flexible. It only means it was decided upon from among other possibilities. Once you start a game, the rules are no longer arbitrary, but rather definitive of the game.

Sure, and in fact I'm not even arguing for stalemate to be made a win. I just don't like this type of argument in defence of stalemate, where it's justified as a logical conclusion of winning=checkmate and moves that let your king to be captured=illegal. You shouldn't use arbitrary axioms to justify a conclusion, expecially when more natural alternative axioms (i.e. the game is really about capturing the king) exist.

And really, saying that the rules are "right" because they have been agreed upon can be simplified into "stalemate should be a draw because it was agreed for quite a while to be a draw".

You shouldn't support an arbitrary rule just because it fits well in a coherent system of other arbitrary rules. Unless, of course, if there is no other possible coherent system. But that is not the case here.

Why not just admit that the rules are (obviously) logically consistent either way and it's just a matter of taste? Your so called "more natural" axioms are just as arbitrary as any other. And no, the game isn't about capturing the king. If it was, the rules would have been made in a way that made it possible to capture the king.

All games by their very nature are a conglomerate of agreed upon rules. Sometimes the rules are selected by one person, as in some board game, and sometimes, in an evolutionary-type game - one that grew and changed over time - the rules are different at different times and in different places and often "house-rules" exist. Codification is nothing more than  agreed upon laws that govern the play of a game.  Once the codification is accepted, those places that accept it are more-or-less bound by that agreement.  It's really similar to a contract in that it can be anything anyone choses, but once signed, is binding and what was once arbitrary is now set-in-stone, so to speak.  Right or wrong have nothing to do with rules once they are accepted anymore than fairness or unfairness has anything to do with contracts once they are signed.  The arguments for and against "stalemate" were considered, I'm sure, during the codification process (which was a conscious effort that lasted about a half century, and even longer for some rules- and which has been amended occasionally) and even considered afterwards (see HERE for it's development over time).   The logic of Stalemate and its consequences has been argued over time and what we use today is more or less a reasonable compromise, but since it's been this way for almost 2 centuries in most places (shorter in some, much longer in others), it's now entangled in the very fabric of the game's theory - and that is the main reason why it will probably never be changed.

I will always think stalemate should be a draw.  If I can't checkmate someone then I don't deserve a win just because I put the match in stalemate.  However, if my opponent is not good enough to get me checkmated when I clearly lost the game, then at least I can try to stop them from getting a victory and the only thing I gain is stopping the opponent from getting a victory.

No one should get a win just because they stopped their opponent from beating them by not checkmating them.

Ok, I am fine with arguing for stalemate on the basis that it has been long decided. But I don't like the argument based on stalemate being a logical conclusion of an arbitrary system. And yes, chess's current system is way more arbitrary than capture king.

System A

• Chess is won by capturing the king

Stalemate is then just a (non-terminal) position, but clearly a winning one. This is a very natural system.

System B

• Chess is won by capturing the king
• However, we don't want to play out the actual act of capturing the king

It makes sense to resolve this by ending the game (prematurely?) as a loss when one is two half moves away from losing in system A. Stalemate is a win here. We also don't let players put themselves in a position one half-move away from losing (in System A) if they have other options.

System C(hess)

• Chess is won by delivering checkmate*
• It is literally illegal to play a move that puts your king in check*

Considering stalemate, the game literally cannot continue under rule 2 of this system, and it isn't won because nobody delivered checkmate, so we deduce that stalemate is a draw.

(*) Wait a minute, what do these terms even mean? Let's see what FIDE has to say:

Checkmate

"[The act of placing] the opponent's king 'under attack' in such a way that the opponent has no legal move."

So essentially, in addition to what constitutes a legal move, you have a secondary definition of what constitutes "attacking" the king. You can't just say that attacking the king means you can capture the king if you had the move because, remember, capturing the king is not a legal move.

System B is nearly the same as A, except the game is shortened by two moves. System C seems to try to redefine the axioms to arrive at most of the conclusions of System B (all except stalemate). System C's axioms are a hell of a lot more arbitrary, and on top of that, they rely on A's definition of legal moves in order to define what constitues as placing the king under check.

What a mess. Wouldn't it be so much easier and logical to stick with the single axiom of capture king?

In chess, it is illegal to capture the king. Throughout history, it has always been like that. The King has always been put apart from the other pieces. If you don't like it, you can invent some other game with different rules but this game wouldn't be chess any more.

The rules of chess (like the rules of any other game) are completely arbitrary and have the only purpose to make the game interesting for its players. Arguing with 'logic' or some imaginary 'system' behind these rules is completely missing the point.

I know I'm being a bit contrarian here, and in fact I agree with batgirl's argument that stalemate should be a draw because of long agreed upon rules. However, we need to recognize that we should continue to adopt these rules, for batgirl's reasons and others, in spite of the fact that they are more arbitrary and less natural than letting stalemate be a win.

Making the game interesting is a good thing, but you can't deny that natural rules are better, all other things being equal.

We have the option of grossly simplifying the rules to a single, natural axiom and keeping everything else about the game the same, just by making stalemate a win. And that IS a valid reason for wanting to make stalemate a win.

If the rules were changed so that stalemate was a win it wouldn't benefit the stalematers for long (if at all). Endgame lovers would just accomodate themselves to the new rules and those who don't want to work at endgames will still get torn to pieces in the endgame by those who do (unless the game ends before the endgame).

maybe in the future, when chess is solved.

but for now, no.

Capturing the king is not natural and would have much farther implications. To keep your rule 'natural', you would have to allow leaving the king in check (or moving him therein), allowing players to blunder their king just like a pawn or any other piece, with the only difference that blundering the king would end the game immediately. This seems absurd to me.

Again: the king is special. This is a fundamental property of chess.

I don't see why you think allowing players to blunder their king is absurd while allowing players to blunder into allowing checkmate is not.

But anyway, under system B we don't allow players to blunder their king. The reasoning for doing this under B is out of politeness, and wanting the win to be forced. I think that's closer to your reason for wanting it than asserting that such a move is literally illegal.

The game is not about capturing the king.  It is about creating a situation where the king cannot avoid capture.  This is not an insignificant difference.  The current rule is far more elegant.

Did Bobby Fischer want the game changed so stalemate was a win?

NO!

Then conversation closed.

Stale meat on the other hand...