Stalemate rule needs to be abolished!

In chess we have to make moves, within a time limit.
When I am in ZUGZWANG I am "forced to move" and "commit suicide"

A person who is in stalemate has "trouble moving" ... in other words he is in zugzwang.... we should then... logically... force him to "commit suicide" as well.... "suicide of the clock"
ie  let his clock run out ... until he moves.

Again, you can't be "forced to move" if you simply can not make a move.  If you can not make a move, they don't wait for you to move until you run out of time, that's ridiculous.  They simply say stalemate, draw.

Even though there is no legal move?  And about the "Why can you put a queen on a sqaure where it can be captured, it's because the queen holds no special importance, other than that it is most powerful.

Well, that speaks for itself. "The Knights who say Ni!" is beyond awesomeness.

And, returning to the topic, we already told you that abolishing stalemate would create a conflict with other rules. Counting a stalemate as a win could mean that a side who has no possibility of checkmating the enemy king could actually win the game, and this, in my opinion, is more stupid than Stalemate itself.

But you can't force him to make an illegal move -- after all, if that's possible, then he could just capture your king with some random piece on the board.

And the "moving into check is an illegal move" rule is pretty fundamental thing (even castling through check is illegal, after all). Do you want to change that to?

There is nothing left to say. The only real argument for stalemate is that the object of the game is to checkmate the enemy king and stalemate means you can't do that so the game is drawn. This is a very black and white illogical "to the rules" way to summarize this discussion. But, chess is a game, it has rules. If all illogical rules were to be removed soon we would have to chess.

Still, I think stale mate is stupid.

Like many who have posted here, I started reading every comment in response to the original topic. After many 'days', I got tired of many nonsenses. But, still want to make my point to this thread.

Why today? 2011? Why? After years and years of playing and studying this perfect and ancestral science-game, people like us should question and try to change some of the rules because 'is stupid' or 'is not fair'? What whould have thought Fisher, Alekhine...thousands of grandmasters who learned, enjoyed, suffered, won, lost and draw in the same conditions like us.

I think that if we dare to question this or any other rule, first of all we are totally disrespecful to those great players, great minds, that made this game what it is. And also ignorant... nobody who has ever studied chess would doubt.

This debate started long before today.  Chess is dying because of the large amount of draws.  Capablanca was one of the first to talk about the death of chess by draws and introduced his own ideas to change the game by adding new pieces.  Treating stalemates as a win was favored by Nimzowitsch.  You ask what would have Fischer thought.  You don't have to speculate on that one.  Fischer thought chess under present rules was boring and tried to reform it with  Fischer chess.  When you talk about the tradition of our ancestors you seem to forget that the original rule was that a stalemate was a win and that it was a rule change that made it draw. 

That is just wrong. The level of draws at the top is still just about the same as it ever was, and us amateurs don't choose to play chess based on the number of draws at top level anyway.

And in fact, chess is absolutely thriving due to the Internet! There are more players than ever, and more people follow chess news than ever.

Some, even some GMs, may argue that chess is dying due to the high frequency of draws. However, would abolishing stalemate even significantly help to alleviate that "problem"? Stalemates account for a relatively small percentage of actual draws. A few weeks ago, we discussed ways to discourage the number of draws by agreement. But turning stalemates into non-draws would eliminate only a small percentage of draws in general. Therefore, the goal of greatly reducing the number of draws in chess would not be accomplished by this single rule change.

I apologize if my statements rehash a point someone else has already made. Unlike metalcsg, I do not have time to read through all the 500+ posts.

A lot of the post are from people who (like me) got tired of Monster insulting them and started posting penguin pictures and similars.

I'm not trying to speculate about anything. You're right about Fischer chess. I read about it. What I really don't know is if Fischer only invented his 'variation' or tried first to add changes or improvements to the rules of the original game. I do not agree with you. Stalemate considered either win or draw, is still stalemate. I do agree with  kwaloffer's comment.

There are relative few games decided by stalemate, but stalemate is a large factor in which endgames are winnable.  Right now you have to about a rook ahead in material to checkmate your opponent.  Many pawn endings are not played out because they are known draws because the inferior side can prevent queening due to the stalemate rule.  To win a King+pawn endgame against a king, the superior side needs to get in front of his pawn with the opposition to win because of the inevitable stalemate if he doesn't.   A bishop + rook pawn is a draw if the bishop is the wrong color, because the best the superior side can obtain is a stalemate.   For instance two knights and a king vs a king is a draw because a mate cannot be forced..   There is little doubt changing the stalemate would drastically reduce the number of draws.

@pauix: Well, yes, I saw many of those posts. 

@blake78613: I see what you're getting at. Stalemates themselves occur infrequently, but stalemate is a fundamental reason that many other types of draws occur. This simply doesn't bother me so much. It merely contributes to the complex strategy of the game. I know several people have already voiced this opinion, and I don't want to just echo their arguments. To me, it is simply part of the game. I believe that I have no right to call any aspect of chess inferior or ridiculous (for argument's sake). I must gain an astronomical amount of knowledge of chess before I would ever have the right to think about changing any of the rules.

@ blake78613

Thank you for posting the History of the stalemate rule. To summarize stalemates have been, at one time, a win for white, a half win for white, a win for black, not allowed, a forfeiture of black's turn to move, and as it is today, a draw.

This being the case Our position is this: if Mobster_wth_no_Name hates the stalemate rule or any other rule for that matter then he should find others who will play by his set of rules and quit badgering those who disagree with him with ad hominem attacks.

I never knew that stalemate was once not allowed!  Thanks for posting that!

So, can we close the topic and return to important questions:

• Knights or Bishops?
• Fischer or Kasparov?
• Alekhine or Tal?
• Waffles or Pancakes?

Kasparov.

Depends.

Alekhine

This question has nothing to do with chess.

Semantically almost impawnderable !