learn to play chess: section on draws - suggested edits

I noticed the section of chess.com under the learn menu: rules and basics: learn to play chess: draws can use some updating and improvements. Here's the way it looks now:

Occasionally chess games do not end with a winner, but with a draw. There are 5 reasons why a chess game may end in a draw:

• The position reaches a stalemate where it is one player’s turn to move, but his king is NOT in check and yet he does not have another legal move
• The players may simply agree to a draw and stop playing
• There are not enough pieces on the board to force a checkmate (example: a king and a bishop vs.a king)
• A player declares a draw if the same exact position is repeated three times (though not necessarily three times in a row)
• Fifty consecutive moves have been played where neither player has moved a pawn or captured a piece

Here are my suggestions for improvement (with suggested changes in boldface):

Sometimes chess games do not end with a winner, but with a draw. There are five ways in which a chess game may end in a draw:

• The position reaches a stalemate, meaning the player having the turn has both NO legal moves possible NOR is the player's king in check.
• The players may agree to a draw.
• It is impossible to checkmate: either there are not enough pieces on the board to force a checkmate (example: a king and a bishop vs._a king), or there is no sequence of moves which can lead to checkmate.
• Either player may declare a draw if there is three-fold repetition: the same position occurs a third time in the game (though not necessarily three times in a row).
• Either player may declare a draw if fifty consecutive moves have been played in which neither player has moved a pawn, nor captured a piece.

Any thoughts on this?

I like some of your edits but not others (more specifics below). Overall, I think you've made the descriptions more accurate, but in some cases they're also less understandable for beginners, who are the primary readers of the rules and basics section.

Sometimes chess games do not end with a winner, but with a draw. There are five ways in which a chess game may end in a draw:

I like the edits.

• The position reaches a stalemate, meaning the player having the turn has both NO legal moves possible NOR is the player's king in check.
• I would say something like "meaning the player whose turn it is to move has no legal moves available, but the player's king is not in check." (I'm keeping the "but" since typically when you have no legal moves available you have been checkmated.)
• The players may agree to a draw.
• I would keep the "and stop playing" part, for the sake of clarity for beginners.
• It is impossible to checkmate: either there are not enough pieces on the board to force a checkmate (example: a king and a bishop vs._a king), or there is no sequence of moves which can lead to checkmate.
• The original is clearly inadequate, but your edit feels confusing. I can't think of a better idea at the moment though.
• Either player may declare a draw if there is three-fold repetition: the same position occurs a third time in the game (though not necessarily three times in a row).
• Possibly change "declare" to "claim" (since on this site players have to claim the draw by clicking on the "draw" button), but otherwise I think the edit is good.
• Either player may declare a draw if fifty consecutive moves have been played in which neither player has moved a pawn, nor captured a piece.
• Again, there's the "declare" vs. "claim" thing. Also, the grammar in the original ("or" instead of "nor") is correct.

Thanks for the feedback, macer; I disagree with you about the grammar, though, concerning neither-or vs. neither-nor:

Here's some info on that:

http://thewritepractice.com/how-to-use-either-neither-or-and-nor-correctly/

I like your idea of "claim" instead of "declare".

The sentence isn't pairing "neither" with "nor" though. "Nor" refers to capturing a piece, which is paried with moving a pawn; however, "neither" refers to the two players, not either of the two actions. It would be correct to say "... if a player has neither moved a pawn, nor captured a piece," but in the sentence in question it should be "or."

Perhaps this will clarify for you why using "nor" in the sentence, rather than "or" is correct grammatically:

Here is the original sentence:

• Fifty consecutive moves have been played where neither player has moved a pawn or captured a piece

It's intended meaning is both players have not moved a pawn and both players have not captured a piece. So there is a correlation with the pawn-moving with the piece capturing, as they are part of the same predicate and only separated by the conjunction "or",
which I am suggesting can be corrected to the conjunction "nor", since it is grammatically correct to pair "neither" with "nor" rather than pairing "neither" with "or". 

So, which is correct?

• Either player may declare a draw if fifty consecutive moves have been played in which neither player has moved a pawn or (has any player) captured a piece.
• Either player may declare a draw if fifty consecutive moves have been played in which neither player has moved a pawn nor (has any player) captured a piece.

Notice I put "has any player" in parentheses, as it is not part of the original sentence, but is there to demonstrate the intended meaning of the sentence. Again, I must disagree with you, as I believe the sentence is pairing "neither" with "nor" since they are part of the same predicate.

Well... I still think I'm right, since I don't think if the intended meaning is the second one you can omit "has any player." But I could be wrong, so I'm hoping a grammar guru can step in here and give us his/her take.

For the sake of making my argument though, what if we were talking about a game with three players? Would it be "... in which none of the three players has captured a pawn or moved a piece," or "... in which none of the three players has captured a pawn nor moved a piece"? I think it's the first one, and if that's the case, the original should also be "or" since if "neither player" is exchanged for "none of the three players" when the number of players changes, then the presence of the word "neither" is just a byproduct of the fact that there are two players.

Also, to go back to other aspects of your edits... regarding bullet point #3, I think you could actually split it into two situations:

1. Insufficient material situations where the game stops immediately, before either player's time runs out, and

2. Situations where one side runs out of time, but the other side doesn't have enough material to force a checkmate.