Why stalemate should be a win.

Yeah I get that but they are illegal and you claim that they are legal.

 I can appreciate that. While I like the variety of different rules/variants (I spend my time studying variants/history or solving chess puzzles but rarely play actual games), there would be no advanced tactics if the rules changed too much for patterns to be discovered or codified.

Pardon me. If you were talking about normal chess in your diagram - then the position is draw. But I dreamed that chess were a little bit different, so that in your diagram the result will be a win for Black as a logical outcome. My point is that capturing the king is more logical than checkmating him. I don't really see a point in inserting a checkmate rule in chess (People did insert it when they invented chess).

That's the OPs point, allow kings to be captured, I.e. change the rule regarding king movements. Radical? Yes. Logical? Yes. Should we change the king rule then? Most will say no. But let's not forget that the game of chess evolved out of other ancient games, which kept having rule changes and piece additions,etc until we got chess. What if they too said" that would throw years of theory out the window"? Change isn't always bad, maybe inconvenient to some, but that's not a valid reason to reject something. I'm neutral on king movement rule, but I do think more minor changes like adjusting scoring to the game would only be a justified positive to the game.

 They added the rule because royalty did not like the idea of a game where the goal was to kill the aristocracy. Stopping just before killing was more or less a compromise. This is the same reason why the "King" in xiangqi is a general instead. I imagine they kept the checkmate rule over the years for the purpose of analysis, as winning positions are easy to spot in a diagram or notation.

dstokkink: 

Nice point by you. I don't know how to answer on that.

It's logical in the sense of what the game is about. The goal is to basically capture the King, but we shy one move from capture. Why not play til the actual capture? That is the OP's argument.

YES!

Because it would be stupid.

I like your idea, except for all the horrible flaws.

It's stupid? No what's stupid is how we win now- I can capture your king next move, I win! Why not just play through the capture when we can say I win because I've captured your king? Makes way more sense.

it is a good idea although people are right: endgames would have to be restudied and zugzwang is right and the arguments for it are good, but idk it just seems radical to change the whole game like that

I'm torn on this issue.

On one hand, the rules of the game are to checkmate the enemy king to win. If you cannot mate him, you do not deserve the win, and a player managing to force a stalemate from a losing position deserves the hard-earned draw.

On the other hand, isn't resignation a legal move on any given turn? Shouldn't they be required to use their last legal move and tip their king?

I think the stalemate provides for a more interesting game, despite the logic of option B.

I think people get caught up in how chess seems like a war game. Sure it might seem that way but in reality it's just a board game and the rules in place make a draw the only possible outcome.

Resignation is not considered a "legal move."

also then pawn up positions go from ~40% won to like ~80% won and lone piece endgames would be won

Stalemate should be 0.75 points instead of a full win or a draw because of insufficient material. That would be more interesting. But comparing it to checkmate takes the whole fun out of the game.

that would complicate all the tournaments / odds

But the point is, when a player has no legal moves to play, the game can't move on, so it's a draw. As you know, it's not legal to move your king into check, so when there's a stalemate, the king as no legal moves. If we consider the fact that the king moves into check and is captured, it would be considered defying the rules, so when a player doesn't have any legal moves, the game is a draw, regardless of the position of the game. Besides, Chess is just a board game. It can't be compared with real war. In what kind of war does the queen go into war, or the castle move?

But the point is, when a player has no legal moves to play, the game can't move on, so it's a draw. As you know, it's not legal to move your king into check, so when there's a stalemate, the king as no legal moves. If we consider the fact that the king moves into check and is captured, it would be considered defying the rules, so when a player doesn't have any legal moves, the game is a draw, regardless of the position of the game. Besides, Chess is just a board game. It can't be compared with real war. In what kind of war does the queen go into war, or the castle move?

In England up to around 1810 chess was a LOSS for the side giving stalemate.

In Shatranj is was a win for the side giving stalemate. In the period of transition from Shatranj to chess, called medieval chess, we can't determine with any certainty how stalemate was treated. In Italy after the new chess, that is the beginning of modern chess, was introduced, stalemate was treated as a draw. In Spain at the same time, stalemate was considered an inferior win in which the victor only won half the stakes. At the same time Russia, however, followed the same rule as England with stalemate being a loss for the side giving stalemate.