Insufficient material program is STUPID!

To IfPatriotgames. If both players have only a king left it is an automatic draw. That is the rule in chess. Nobody has any time left then. In my Post # 58 you listed above I mentioned that " If both players have less than what is listed above the rules are to call it a draw. " King versus king is less. Thus a drawn game.   Thank you fellow members for mentioning FIDE rules. Even though I have played & enjoyed chess for a long, long time I do not play in competitions or tournaments. I'm the 1st. to admit that I do not know everything & never will. I believe you answered one of my questions from Posts # 18 & # 47. The who changed the rules of this issue, question, to be FIDA for competitions. I believe through some research it might have been in 2017. Can anybody confirm this? Is this where Chess.com got the notion to not effect a win to the person ( with less material,  even just a king ) with opponent running out time and a draw is called instead? As mentioned in my Posts # 18 & # 47 . Don't want to know why, just the who & when. 

It has been a rule of chess for as long as I can remember that in order to win on time you must have sufficient mating material on the board.

I have been playing for 40 years.

You may not like the rule but to argue against it is futile. it is part of the rules of both FIDE and USCF.

ps Hoyle has never been regarded as an expert on chess. If you want to know the rules of chess try FIDE or USCF

I had the following game position in a USCF-rated OTB tournament yesterday (doesn't matter whose move it is).  I claimed a draw since my king can't be forced off of the blockading square, and my bishop can make as many waiting moves as needed.  I had much less time on my clock, but my opponent agreed that a draw was the appropriate result (insufficient losing chances).  If this game had been on chess.com instead, I would have simply lost on time if my opponent had declined a draw offer.  I know that chess.com only takes material into account.  And I know that it would be difficult to implement the "insufficient losing chances" rule into software code.  But I wish that they would try.

Is not one pawn & a king sufficient to effect a win through possible promotion. Even if the other person has more you should not assume they cannot make mistakes. When I get a chance I will check out your recommendations Lagomorph. Maybe a king by itself is not enough. If you have a pawn you still, no matter how great the odds have a chance. By the way, I have been playing almost 2 decades longer than yourself & was the best in my school in grades 7 & 8 winning the Chess Award both years. It was a small town & not very many people played  it then. Less than 10 people entered each year then. It was hard to find people to play as everyone was into sports. I didn't notice this system of someone getting a draw when they ran out of time at Chess.com when I first starting using it in 2011 or so. I would say I am old school & mostly self taught. Used to read up on it & will do so again in the future. End of story for me for now. 

That's actually a good point.... the difference between insufficient material and insufficient losing chances.    I doubt that distinction is likely to be made through current software.  Internet chess sites used to have adjudication procedures/processes.  That might be a worthwhile suggestion even if unlikely to be implemented here.

This reminds me of a time when Carlsen and Karjakin got a drawn position (locked pawn endgame, and no way for Kings to break through, so there was mathematically no way to lose the position), it was one of those no draws before move 40 deals, and they were forced to play a few more moves after they tried to claim a draw. I thought that was hilarious!

You misunderstand. My opponent agreed with me that the rules supported my draw claim. I explained my claim to the TD, who also agreed.  The point of this example is that chess.com should try to implement the "insufficient losing chances" rule.  I realize that you disagree with this rule, but it's commonly applied in OTB tournaments.  I don't see why online chess shouldn't at least try to do so.

But I admit that this would be difficult in practice since there are many positions for which objective evaluation in reliable way would require a tablebase (which would be unfair help to the weaker side).  Human TDs are sometimes unsure if the rule applies (although adjudicating my position was easy).  There is no simple solution that will satisfy everyone.  Chess.com apparently decided that implementation of the rule couldn't be done in a totally consistent way, even for the more obvious board positions, so don't even try? Understandable, but a person can dream...

EDIT: I should add that everything I wrote above applies only when a delay or increment is not in use.  In the case of OTB situations, the TD can simply instruct the players to start using a 5-second delay (if not already in use), and then "play on".  This is what would have happened in my game if my opponent had rejected my draw claim.  Then I would have repeatedly moved my bishop to any square safe from the enemy king, until 3-fold repetition or the 50-move-rule applied.  So to avoid these messy situations in online chess, just be sure to use a delay or increment.

I think there should be a prize for writing the most accurate and fair insufficient mating material subroutine on the site. Mine would be like this:

King and 2 knights vs king = Win if lone king flags any position

Any Pawns = Flag is loss

Each side has minor piece: Draw if at least one piece isnt on the edge

Any major pieces = loss regardless of position if flag

Opposite colored bishops and pawn =Drawn if king is already in front of pawn

Does everyone agree that allowing the chess.com software to use a 7-man tablebase to adjudicate insufficient mating material/losing chances would be very unfair to the player trying to win?

It would vastly simplify the automated adjudication process for positions with 7 "men" (pieces and/or pawns) or less, which would cover probably the majority of instances.  But it would give the defending player the great advantage of assumed "best play" on every move (which IMO is too much faith in any player, even engines).

Of course the simplest solution of all is:

Just use a delay or increment!

Otherwise, tough luck if you lose on time in a known theoretically drawn position!

P.S.  I changed my username, was "Entheon" before.

But some theoretically drawn positions are only possible with PERFECT PLAY.

If black plays this position perfectly, it is a draw, but with low time, black could EASILY make a mistake. Even with tons of time, black could make a mistake, so there's a difference between theoretically drawn and DRAWN, such as king and knight vs king and bishop where you can literally make random moves and NEVER risk losing

I think you are right about all of that, except the last part of the last sentence. I would rephrase that to say king and knight vs. lone king. Not king and knight vs. king and bishop. Because if both sides truly made random moves eventually one side would lose. You say never, but some statistics person could probably figure out how many moves before someone loses in a truly random move situation. It might be a few thousand moves, maybe more, but it would eventually happen.

Wrong, all each player has to do is keep their king on opposite colored square as bishop and then randomly move knight around. If knight it's taken its a draw. There would be repetition or true insufficient material long before anyone winds up mated.

The most interesting case in queen vs 2 knights. The queen can force a win, but the 2 knights can also mate EVEN with the queen on the board, but it cannot be forced with or without the queen. What should happen if white loses on time?

If mate against you is possible, and your time is up, you lose.  That's not hard to understand.  If you've got a queen versus two knights, the two knights can hold the draw pretty easily from most starting positions, so if you're in a time deficit, probably best to offer the draw right away.

NO amount of time pressure will make white allow black to queen his pawn, capture every one of his pieces and force mate. NONE.

Also, and others have noted it here, there is a big difference between "book draw" and actual draw.  Just this weekend I managed to simplify an otherwise lost position into a rook v. rook+pawn endgame which was "book drawn", as in with perfect play.  I did not play perfect enough, and so I lost.

If you don't want to lose on time, make better use of it, or offer the draw while your opponent will still count himself lucky to escape with it.

If you want a change in the rules, why doesn’t everybody just write what they think the new rule should be and if you agree with a rule, @ the person in a comment and we can then make a petition in a new forum topic with that rule.

In this position, which is theoretically possible by the way (proven in my thread: "position with most number of checkmating moves") white has 100 ways to checkmate black. Black can also theoretically win. It was nearly impossible to construct this game where black is able to mate white, because there are literally more moves that mate black than don't. Like any random move by white most likely wins here! Any time pressure would result in black getting mated accidentally, let alone black winning. So black can theoretically win, white should lose if he flags?

Yes, that's true. But that's not what you said. You said "such as king and knight vs.king and bishop where you can literally make random moves and NEVER risk losing". So if a player is keeping their king on opposite colored squares (or any intentional moves) then it wouldn't be random. Also, repitition wouldn't matter because you said "never". That's why I said for truly random moves it would have to be king and knight vs. lone king.

It would still be interesting to see if some computer program can figure out how many moves it would take for a random move game starting with those four pieces to end in checkmate.

True, bht random moves could also lead to captures, which would immediately be insufficient material. Youd also have to deliberately avoid capturing moves