granted, but take a look at some of the longest shortest conversions in some 7 man tablebases. No human can determine whether progress is being made or not. perhaps in those types of endings in tournament play, the defending player can call for a tablebase check after every 50 moves. the clock is stopped, and the position is plugged into a tablebase by an arbiter. if the tablebase shows a lesser DTC than the original position or last check, the game continues. if it shows a greater DTC, draw or win for claiming player, the game is drawn. This forces porgress to be made by the stronger side... (note NEITHER player would see the tablebase under ANY circumstances, although they may appoint someone they trust to watch the arbiter and ensure that it is correct). However only 6 man (including K's) and a few 7 man Tablebases are available.. :(
no 50 move rule
50-move rule has stood the test of time. No need to meddle.
As tazerdadog mentioned, I'd be in favor of letting captures reset the 50-move count, just eliminating resets after pawn moves. (Thinking about it, I'd also include pawn promotions, since these moves also change the material situation on the board.) This does mean the 50-move rule could be invoked at move 50 if a game has no captures, which got me wondering if there have been games where there were no captures in the first 50 moves. So, I checked Tim Krabbe's Web site, which is usually a great place to look for arcane chess trivia like this, and Krabbe does not disappoint. According to Krabbe, the game with the latest first capture is Rogoff-Williams at the 1969 World Junior Championship, in which the first capture occurred on move 94! To give two other amusing examples of games without a capture before move 50:
(1) In Meijfroidt-Lenoir, Veurne 2000, White lost on time at move 72 before any pieces had been captured.
(2) In Filipowicz-Smederevac, Polanica Zdroj 1966, White baffled his opponent by claiming a draw by the 50-move rule. They were 70 moves into the game, and all 32 pieces were still on the board. This is not the earliest a player has ever drawn a game by the 50-move rule - in Pouw-Van Dort, Black claimed a 50-move draw at move 69.
For anyone interested, Rogoff-Williams, Meijfroidt-Lenoir, and Filipowicz-Smederevac can be played through at the link below:
http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/
Yeah -- that's right, castling and en passant rights to factor for three-fold repetition. Arguably castling should also reset the counter for the 50 move rule.
Not sure what you mean about the takeback though.
Given that there are forced mates in (somewhat common) endings that last more than 50 moves and that any position that results in both sides moving in perpetuity without progressing (perpetual check and fortresses for example) will eventually result in three-fold repetition I'd be inclined to agree, however for practical considerations, particularly here, it needs to be left in place. There would no doubt be players who push a dead drawn perpetual check or fortress position significantly past 50 moves without conceding the draw even if incremental time were implemented. It can take a hell of a lot longer than 50 moves to arrive at threefold repetition in some of these positions.