Check out Balbo's Chess, our featured variant for October, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Robert Shimmin wrote on Sat, Mar 15, 2003 01:50 PM UTC:
But how will you determine whether it's theoretically possible to checkmate the out-of-time opponent? While simple cases are known, and a broader class has been determined by retrograde analysis for computer endgame tablebases, when the flag falls, certainly the theoretical value of a position of even a small degree of complexity is not known with certainty. <p> And it is somewhat unsatisfying to have to look the final position up in the table to find out who won; and more troublesome that according to this rule, as the size of the known tablebases grows, positions that were won on time last year might be a draw the next. <p> Most troubling is it assumes that a player with a theoretical draw would actually have been able to find and play that draw, so a player who thinks that the position is drawn but can't figure out exactly how may be better off to just sit and let the time run off the clock and gamble that his gut instinct that the position was drawn was correct, thereby making inferior chessplayers able to draw endgames they normally would have lost. <p> Actually, however, most clubs and many tournaments include an 'insufficient material' clause, whereby a player may claim a draw whenever their opponent has insufficient material to mate them, thereby limiting these drawn to trivially drawn games. How trivial a draw is sufficient to put it on the list is a matter of some dispute, and the FIDE drew the line at 'a bare king cannot win,' which is a rather conservative stance, but where <i>are</i> you going to draw the line? Here's a list taken from the Portland Chess Clubs rules. <li>single minor piece <li>bishops of opposite color with one pawn <li>bishops of opposite color with 2P vs 1, w/ two of those pawns blockading each other. <li>KP vs K, king blocking pawn's advance <li>KRP vs KR, king blocking pawn's advance <li>KR vs KR <li>KQ vs KQ <p> In some of these situations, a weak player clearly has a chance of being swindled, yet the Portland Club made them draws anyway. Where would you draw the line?

Edit Form

Comment on the page FIDE Laws Of Chess

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.