There could be a force move button which the players can press anytime but only works if there is only one legal move when that move is played.
Some times players may have made an illegal move when there is only one legal move and not even realized it's their move.
Illegal moves won't be executed by Lichess.
Sure, there could be such a button. But imagine how many buttons we would have there. And some of them only valid in such a specific case ... No, I think, that is only feasible if the programmers really absolutely don't have an idea what to do for a very huge period of time ...
Fwiw, I was told that OTB is considered good and normal etiquette that if you only have one legal move, you should move immediately.
Pro tip: it is a perfect time to offer draw with a forced move because you don‘t have to make a difficult choice. So if you want to offer draw do it before the crossroads.
So, contemplating about an only-move is reasonable as well.
PS: I heard that in „Bridge“ deceiving the opponents that way is forbidden - if there is only one legal move you are not allowed to think. ;)
I adhere to post #11
@Sarg0n Bridge is different from chess in that there are no hidden cards.
“I like the idea of adding an "announce mate" feature where if you announce the incorrect number of moves, you lose. But I don't think developers would accept code contributions for that.”
What is the incentive to announce mate, if being wrong means an automatic loss? What does it gain? Would it take away an opponent’s time to think about it? Obviously that couldn’t work, because the person making the claim might be wrong. So why do it?
I suppose the incentive to announce mate is that it's fun to do.
I think it could be something along the lines of: You declare a forced mate in, say, three moves, and a little analysis board pops up where you could demonstrate that. If you do, the game is declared a win in your favor, if you are wrong you lose. This would allow you to avoid the situation described at the start of the thread. But the more moves the mating sequence requires, and the more potential counters the loser has to stave off the mate, the more unrealistic it is for a player to demonstrate it. If the loser still has many pieces on the board and can move any one of them, because none can avoid mate on the next move, does the person declaring have to map out their mating move as a response to every one of those possibilities? And if it is two moves long, then it's surely already impossible, if there are many pointless moves available.
There could be something there, though. In situations where there is only one response to each move in the sequence, it would be pretty straightforward for the claimer to prove it.
PS - I agree that it is fun to do. When I was a little kid, I thought all games ended with somebody saying that. And it sounds just as cool as saying all-in in poker when you know you have the best hand, or whatever. So if you are just saying that you can generally just declare it whenever, say "mate in three" and then you and your opponent play it out to see if you are right, then yeah, that sounds fun.
Guys, the topic is forced move, not forced mate.
