Manifesto: The Incremental Draw — For Fairer Chess in the Age of the Clock

What I'm proposing would build on an existing FIDE rule.

FIDE Article 10.2 (now 9.6.2 in recent updates):

If a player has run out of time, but the opponent does not have “sufficient mating material,” the game is declared a draw.

This whole rule change seems pointless and would make it much less efficient for arbiters.

From my understanding any position where the proposed change could apply would be a position where the player could already claim a draw and if they don't do so it's because player chooses not to. Anyone who fails to claim a draw in a completely winning position with a few seconds on the clock and gets flagged is a victim of their own incompetence.

In chess the rules have been moving in the direction of reducing adjudications and making rules crystal clear so there's no subjective interpretations. For example a theoretically possible checkmate is a clear cut criteria everyone understands and I can give a determination of a position in under 5 seconds that no one would dispute.

This rule change would be a nightmare to implement and lead to confusion. For example imagine a player thinks they have a winning position so it will automatically be drawn if they run out of time but when it's put through an engine a resource both players missed means evaluation changes. In that case person thought they had a draw but it turns into a loss. I'll also add that in a tournament with let's say 200 players and 4 arbiters. Assuming that 30 games are decided on time and that in new system it takes 5min to decide whether it's a loss or a draw for flagged player. Then means that arbiter team has to spend an extra 2.5 hours adjudicating flag falls when they would normally be recording results. Even if it's reduced to 2min it's still 1 hour per round. I don't see how that can be justified when present rules are much more efficient. In a blitz competition working out all the flag falls might take longer than the rounds.

It would be quite easy to implement.

OTB, if the player flags but has a material advantage over the democratically-determined threshold (say, +5), it's a draw. Unless the opponent can demonstrate they have a forced checkmate, then they win on time.

Online, it's easier. If the flagger is +5, it's automatically a draw. That would capture forced-checkmate, because the flagger would evaluate at #-x.

Giving a win to a player whose play is overtly worse explicitly raises the value of the clock over the value of the board, which is an affront to chess. The incremental draw puts those two concerns back in balance.

It's not "easy to implement" at all. Quite the contrary.

It isn't easy to understand. And it is not fair. It can be abused.
It isn't stable (regarding engine, search depth, hardware, etc.).
It doesn't add value to the game.
It actually encourages stalling in some positions.
It encourages cheating ("just checking if I can lose on time here").
It values position over time for no good reason - you can often exchange one for the other.

There are tons of downsides, and virtually no upsides.

If everyone here (pretty experienced player among them) tells you that your proposal does not work, maybe it's time to face the reality and drop it? Many ideas look great at first, but turn out to be bad after giving it enough consideration.

ChatGPT said my idea is the best idea it's heard in ages.

Also, all this talk about the difficulty with engine is so disingenuous. Every time I play on lichess or chess.com, there's an engine, offering an evaluation after the game. THAT engine is what I'm talking about. The site's default engine.

You're right it DOES elevate position over time...for the simple reason that POSITION IS the point of chess, not how quickly one can make mouse clicks.

The rest of your objections don't make sense.

If you hate the clock, just play correspondence.

Complete bs

@Mister_Humidity said in #25:

ChatGPT said my idea is the best idea it's heard in ages.
which merely proves the point that you ChatGPT does not understanding merely makes sequence words that could an answer to your question.

Idea in not implementable as it can be exploited. nor would gain any support and reduce excitement of the game.

@Mister_Humidity said in #25:

ChatGPT said my idea is the best idea it's heard in ages.

This must be a joke, right?

@Mister_Humidity said in #26:

Also, all this talk about the difficulty with engine is so disingenuous. Every time I play on lichess or chess.com, there's an engine, offering an evaluation after the game. THAT engine is what I'm talking about. The site's default engine.

You seem to lack understanding of how engines work, how they give non-deterministic and different evaluations, and how engines evaluations are often not representing the "reality" from a human point of view. Just because then engine says +8 doesn't mean that there is an easy win. This is simply not how engines work.

You're right it DOES elevate position over time...for the simple reason that POSITION IS the point of chess, not how quickly one can make mouse clicks.

Then why didn't you move faster in the first place? Oh wait, maybe you wouldn't have gotten this great position, then. So now you are punishing the opponent who managed to make his moves in the given (and agreed upon) time frame...

The rest of your objections don't make sense.

I attribute that opinion to ignorance and / or lack of imagination.

No reason to answer to this post, I will probably not engage with this any further. You seem to have found a good friend and supporter in ChatGPT. Maybe play some chess against it.