Windfall Tax (Penalizing Accidental Checkmates)

 Speaking of rule changes: if you achieve checkmate by accident (i.e. you didn't anticipate it), you should only get ¾ of a point for the win (on chess.com only).

You're insane

It's a bad idea, too hard to enforce and pointless anyway. Arguably every checkmate is luck because you didn't see it from the start of the game.

It may be a bad idea, but it would only apply to forced mates. It should be fairly easy to enforce: if you don't call 'mate-in-N' (in the chatbox), you only get ¾ of a point.

orangehonda wrote: You're insane 

They said Nero was insane. George III, too. And the Wicked Witch of the West. 

Every time some one tries to lighten the game with a bit of fun some one has to jump straight on it and put you down!  You people are the reason Chess is no longer on TV in this country because it is associated with a bunch of geeks with no sense of humour!!

And the stereotype is mostly right

I thought it was because Fischer wasn't around any more.

 speak for yourself

(please turn your irony detector on, or borrow one perhaps)

But all of my checkmates are by accident.  My best stratagy/move is a mouse slip.

Actually that's kind of a cool idea, at least for when you play for stakes, kind of like calling your shot in pool -- if you fail to announce the correct number of moves before a forced mate (even mate in 1) you're penalized in some way... hmm

Indeed. Suggested as part of this handicapping-systems---levelling-the-playing-field scheme.

How about a pre-emptive call on the opponent. If you point out your opponent has mate-in-N you salvage 1/4 point.

If I had a ¼ for every time I pointed out mate-in-N, I'd have ... let me think ...

Since when was expressing an opinion "putting you down"?  If the original point was meant to be 'a bit of fun' then do enlighten me as I thought it was a serious post... OP?

The reason Chess isn't on TV anymore in (which country is 'this country', the UK ISN'T a country), is because Chess has no popularity compared with other things on tv. It's also not practical to have Chess on tv since 99% of people don't know how to play it and even those who do wouldn't sit down and watch two GMs play for 6 hours. That applies to Chess matches, Chess is otherwise on TV and if you had been paying any attention to BBC4 recently you would have realised that.

That isn't easy to enforce. It would mean that every time someone typed that into the channel of the game a Chess.com computer would need to analyse the position in detail. Keep in mind that some positions actually take a while to find the shortest checkmate even for a computer, multiply that processing by the number of games and you have a major headache for the server which would result in a massive reduction in performance for everyone.

It would also distort the grading system considerably as people who didn't believe it should play a part wouldn't use it and consequently get a grading penalty.

PS: what if you put into the channel "Mate-in-85" = phail.

So if don't actually have any forcing sequence for checkmate, but then your opponent makes a REALLY stupid move that creates a mate in one, you wouldn't get full credit for noticing it and checkmating him? Nobody under 1200 would EVER get full credit!!!

Fromper, I don't see why you couldn't get full credit in that scenario. Your opponent blunders, you announce mate-in-1 and then checkmate him.

If he blunders into mate in 2,  you have to announce mate-in-2 before your next move, otherwise if you play the forced mate you only get 3/4 of the credit.

The thread was intended as a pastiche of a recent thread which proposed a penalty for resigning. I plead guilty to failing to display a  sign.

This just happened to me (again) - which prompted the thread. How fortunate that this trophy

is available - with its legend: "WOW! I never saw that ending coming! Well played!"

Ok then, didn't know.