Draw by Insufficient Material

Hello chess.com

this seems to be a VERY old thread about that topic. i experienced a wired situation, when i had a knight left and my oponent had a bishop and one pawn. he ran out of time and the game ended draw. i dont get it.

i always thought, that insufficient material means "even a self-mate is impossible". so why was my game drawn then?

thx in advance!

here is the link to that game:

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=967908354

> wired <

weird of course :-)

to make my pióint clear, i know, that for long games it is unwanted to have someone try to win on time only, BUT in speed-chess like 5min per clock this is very uncommen.

Different organizations have different rules for this.  You're probably used to the FIDE rules, where you would be correct.  Chess.com has their own interpretation which is closer to the USCF rules, but really based on ease of implementing in an online environment.  Here, if the one that still has time has any of the following (K only, K+B, K+N, K+2N), then a draw will be declared.

it s obvious

I just draw a game, I had a king and my opponent a king and queen, but he lost on time. Game was declared a draw when his time ran out. Is this covered under FIDE 6.1 or is this a glitch. I do realize I was fortunate to have been given a draw, it was unexpected.

Perfectly normal application of the rule, phantomfighter.  Tough to mate your opponent with just a K. 

As far as I'm concerned CHECKMATE is HOW to win/lose.The rest of these "Rules" are BS.

Chess.com glitch --> end game --> Rook vs. Knight --> Rook went out of time, draw by insufficient material ??? I can checkmate my opponent with a knight if he has a rook!!!! i think it should be my WIN!!!

• Game drawn by timeout vs insufficient material

Been covered a thousand times.

Point is you cannot force a win with a knight vs rook. This site does not follow FIDE rules in this situation but a hybrid USCF rules where basically you cannot rely on a helpmate. It is implemented in the programming by doing a simple piece count. K+N vs any opponent combination means you cannot win on a timeout

I had a queen and 30 seconds on the clock, my opponent just had his king he ran out of time, yet it was declared a draw because of insufficient material. I could have check mated him, I feel cheated!

@bushjumper

I inspected the drawn game that you had played. The final position was actually a draw by stalemate.

I had one game in which ended something like this (I am not so sure of the EXACT positioning so I use this as an example)

I expected the game to be declared "Draw by insufficient material". It was declared "Draw by stalemate" since the final position was a stalemate.

You are quoting an eight year old post. The parameters have changed since this thread started and now a K+N vs K+B would be a draw due to insufficient material on a timeout, by either player.

If that happened then you actually ran out of time. The server keeps the official clocks, not the client, and in order for that result to happen, you would have had to flag.

Edit: read the other replies and see it was actually stalemate 

oops didn't notice since someone posted so recently lol

@Martin_Stahl @CheesyPuns

Apparently the final position of bushjumper's game after 76. Kh4 Qxf4+ (capturing a pawn) 77. Kh5 Kf5?? was like this.

Clearly the game ended in a stalemate, not by insufficient material. The time factor was not to blame, since White had 10 seconds left while Black had 36 seconds left at this point of time.

Come to think of it, Black has sufficient material to mate, but White does not. Rearranging my thoughts, these become as follows: White does not have sufficient material, but the game is a draw. Hmmm. Draw and insufficient material at the same time. Does it mean...