Stalemate rule needs to be abolished!

If the stalemate rule were abolished, King+Pawn vs King would always be won for the former side and therefore material will become much more important, leading to boring games where each side is overly careful.

I'll reiterate that this debate is pointless and impossible because the 2 sides of the argument literally can't understand where the other side is coming from.

It's not a shot at anyone's capacity, it's just pointing out that you're having a debate using the same words (e.g., the game of chess) where each side is defining those words completely differently.

A thought experiment to illustrate my point. Let's say that two people were given a box and told to debate about "the thing in the box". The first person's box contains chocolate cake. The second person's box contains a dog turd.

The first person starts by saying "The thing in the box is a delicious snack." The second responds "You are crazy, no one would ever think about eating this. The only thing that would eat this is a dog, but we would find it disgusting." The first counters "Dogs can't eat this, it would kill them!" The second says "False, it's a way for dogs to get secondary nutrition." Then the two people would start calling eah other names.

If the two people knew that they were using the same term (thing in the box) to describe two different things, the debate would be much different. "Your idea of the thing in the box would be a nutritional snack, however, my idea of it is worthless and disgusting." If they could first agree as to which "thing in the box" they were going to debate about, they might actually get somewhere.

If this debate is going to accomplish anything, we need to stop assigning our own pre-set definitions to the words that the opponent is using and try to understand what the opponent actually means, then respond in a way that the opponent understands. The most effective way to "win" an argument is to ignore what you yourself care about and instead appeal to what your opponent cares about.

This was a public service announcement. Re-commence shouting at each other.

EDITED: For egregious misuse of i.e. vs. e.g.

No stalemate and king can move into check? so.. we could basically castle thru/away from check?

Sounds like a party to me, add in the right for any player to pass and refrain from moving and its sure to be a hit! =D

No castle, no en-passant and no 2 stepping pawns.

ye you are right...

its time to abandon this thread

The thread will end when people are tired of it.  If you are no longer interested in the thread then stop reading it.  There problem solved, now stop trying to enforce your will on everyone else.

johnkorean, I see what you are trying to say but have to disagree. Earlier you presented it as "rules define spirit" vs "spirit deines rules" debate. But for me the latter is just too confusing because we disagree about the spirit of chess already: for you it's a war game, for me it's more logic and math game. So I am strongly for "rules define spirit" way of thinking.

@Monster_with_no_name:

I think you are going a little to far in saying that the stalemated side should be forced to move their king into check. After all, this isn't always possible.

As I said before, when in stalemate, the player must break one of the rules of the game (i.e. You cannot move your own king into check, and, you MUST move.)

Therefor, when one player must break a rule of the game it seems very logical for the stalemated player to lose the game.

No rule is broken, nobody must move - the game is already ended!!! You don't oblige somebody to move after a checkmate, do you? It's same here just with different outcome.

Let's say we get into this theoretical position. How would you solve it without the stalemate rule? (Yes, this might never happen in a real game, just consider it a "study position")

It looks more like a go position Well, black is controlling more territory here...

Black wins and gets the brillancy prize.

So, if we use Go rules, why don't we consider white's pieces as "prisoners"?

Stalemate is so important in endgames. It makes a lot of otherwise lost endgames drawable. This makes chess a more interesting game, as material sacrifices won't necessarily lose the endgame.

As I read the posts, part of the problem is that many (not all) of those who wish to abolish the 'stalemate' rule are equating material or material advantage with winning.  I have won many a game were I was down material.  In addition many of the players who promote pawns are down in material before they promote.  Material in chess is not the same as points in a game.  It is closer to time of possession.  In soccer (football to those outside the US) or football time of possession is an indicator, but not the deciding factor.  Let us not forget soccer (the most popular sport in the world) has many draws, even though one side appears to have outplayed the other.
So just because you are up a pawn (ex: King and Pawn vs King) does not mean you should win or deserve to win.  You need to put your opponent into checkmate!!!  If you cannot successfully do that, you do not win.

In the 2011 Candidate's Tournament there were 27 draws out of 30 games.  If that happened in the World Cup you would see some rule changes in soccer.

Personally, I think that changing the rules to make a stalemate a win is a less drastic measure than having important matches being decided by sudden death blitz playoff.