Abusing Draw by Repetition - Does the Rule Need to be Reworked?

Picture this:

You're winning by 5-10 points. Your queen, knight and bishop are in a dominant position, and you are the clear favorite to win the game. In fact, you are mere moves away from checkmating your opponent. Your opponent then moves their knight back and forth between the same two squares, threatening your queen. You don't want to lose material (specifically the queen) and you don't want to lose the dominant position, so you move your queen to safety where it continues to protect your other pieces whilst also being in a position to work in conjunction with other pieces that you plan to advance on the next move (sound chess as far as I'm concerned). You could move many other pieces, but if you do then you will lose your queen. Suddenly you lose elo because of a repetition draw. In certain situations, this just seems absolutely ridiculous to me.

The repetition rule is, without a doubt, intended to draw games where there are no legitimate/valid moves for either player (a figurative but not literal stalemate). In reality however, players can abuse this rule in certain situations to essentially pull a fast one on you the second they are at a disadvantage. Instead of promoting the true purpose of the rule, I feel like it just promotes charlatan-like behavior.

I would really like to see this rule reworked in the future to include four or five repetitions instead of just three. Three just doesn't seem like enough because, in my opinion, it is important to give players the option to move back and forth at least twice to see how their opponent will react. Put another way, it would give players an opportunity to see whether their opponent is going to continue repeating their move, or to make a different move. If both players keep making the same move over and over, then obviously a repetition draw makes sense. But how can we ever "test" our opponents to see if they will make a different move at all if after the second repetition your opponent holds the power to force the draw? The way the rule is designed in its current state does not allow for this opportunity, and if you ever decide to move a piece back to its previous position and then back again (because it is once again safe to do so), you're potentially putting yourself at risk of losing elo because of a repetition draw. This is especially true and frustrating against players who have a lower rating than you because it basically rewards them and punishes you for being in, arguably, a losing or (at best) equal position when compared to you.

Anyways, my rant is over now. Cue the comments blasting me for either not knowing the rules or having the same access/use of the rules as everyone else does. In any event, I urge you to consider the morality, purpose, and practicality of the draw by repetition rule.

It takes a while to learn to look out for things like repeated positions.  However, you can't blame your opponent. 

The rules were developed over hundreds of years.   

Took me awhile to work around it, OP.  I’ve snatched many a draw from the jaws of victory, heh …

Hang in there, you’ll get it figured out.

If you can figure out how to escape from repetition if the rules allowed four of five, pretty sure you can when they allow only three. If not, the outcome will be the same.

If you can not move your queen to a safe square, then your queen is trapped and you must accept either to lose your queen or a draw by repetition. You are not winning just because your queen is temporarily still on the board if there is no way to save her.

I just need to be more accepting of losing one of my less valuable pieces in situations like this. I guess it's just difficult for me to adapt when I have a plan of attack in mind and then it gets interrupted by a move that I had not considered. Especially when the timer continues to tick down. In the moment the time pressure compelled me into repeating my moves because I was too afraid of making my mistake even bigger. Either way, my attack was interrupted and I needed to adapt and come up with something new. Hoping that my opponent just lets me steam roll through is never going to happen at the higher levels. I was just sitting there thinking: well F what should I do now? New player problems. Looking back at that game, If I would have given up my bishop or knight the score would have been basically even, and I still would have had a chance of winning. Just have to learn from it so it doesn't happen in the future. Growing pains hurt, but they are definitely necessary for me to improve as a player. Just had to rant a little to let off the steam too(: I did read somewhere on another post that IIRC/Fide rules use five repetitions, and that was definitely influential to me in my opinion to rework the rule. Either way I agree that the amount of allowed repetitions isn't ultimately determinative of winning/losing in retrospect, but it might potentially be helpful for the more inexperienced players such as myself. 

And to make it even more complicated, it's not moves what are repeating, but positions.

Also I could have moved my queen to a safe square but I would have lost either a bishop or a knight in the process. Perhaps I will upload the full game later in case anyone is interested.

The rule is fine. Some players need more experience anticipating threats when they seem to have overwhelming force.

Easy Melvin; don't piss in my coffee just because someone pissed in yours. Also, if you're going to call anyone stupid you may want to spell "peculiar" correctly lol. Like I previously stated, the IIRC/Fide rules (you know, the "real life" rules) allow for five repetitions before a repetition draw can be claimed. At least that's what I read on another Chess.com forum post. Not sure of it's validity if I'm being honest. I don't believe I have a big ego, I just think that allowing more repetitions might be beneficial (especially for lower rated players) because maybe your opponent will decide on a different move in the interim. Three repetitions doesn't really allow for an exploration of that option in the first place. But I recognize that in the higher-level play that most likely won't matter because it's probably not going to happen. Either way, as a recent law school graduate, I can't help but consider the intended purpose of the rule and why the rule exists in the first place. Even if you don't agree with my argument, even if the argument is weak, it doesn't mean there isn't an argument to be made at all. If we don't have a conversation about it then how will newer players like myself ever learn and understand? I'm always willing to learn, improve, and I am open to constructive criticism. But sometimes it feels good to vent too, kind of like how you vent about Chess.com's use of our private information. No need to be antagonistic and demeaning. As Yoda once said: "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack."

Take this one for example. Damn!

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106921&kpage=1

You have answered your own question.

You were not winning. You were not in a dominant position. You were not the favourite to win the game. You failed to checkmate your opponent.

Chess rewards the player that delvers the win, not the player that may have won if....

I was the beneficiary of this rule recently, and to make matters worse, I had less than 2 minutes on my clock (rapid) and didn't even realize we had repeated the position. He was way ahead in material, my clock was running out, and I would have resigned if had more time left, and BOOM....it was a draw. I didn't deserve it. 

OTB you have to claim it. I think it should be the same online.

It used to be that way but was changed. With time pressure, timing, and premoves make it harder to do in practice. As far as I'm aware it still is a manual claim for Daily.

"trash game needs a nerf" - 600 elo player

kekw