Material bug

We didn't throw a coin. This is the most reasonable solution. It wasn't randomly choosen.

It is not reasonable. 99% of these games would end in a draw. ICCs solution is much more reasonable.

If anything, it's too reasonable. If you lose on time, it's your fault, and you should lose (if it is possible that you can lose with worst play). You knew from the start that if you ran out of time, you would lose, and you still did. The website decides the game's outcome, and that's out of your control. Meanwhile, do what YOU can and don't lose on time.

#12 What about this? 99% of the time White should win this, so shouldn't you lose when your opponent's time elapsed? (Believe it or not, USCF rules allow White to claim a draw before his or her flag falls in this situation; and if USCF could patch the remaining holes in their ruleset we'd consider using them or something similar.)

Wow, lots of arrogant comments from CM sargon and others from a politely asked question. I thought it would be a fun discussion, not one filled with insults.

@eligolf it is always like this when this topic comes up :-)

@pls_resign so, what when the player had lag?

@Toadofsky So What about this?



100% of the time white should draw this. Why is it a win for black?

@Klartext All concocting positions and saying "What about this?" does is make things more complicated than they already are. Lichess (and every site) NEEDS to make a "general rule" because that's the best that can be done, because the number of unique positions is huge. For #16 I agree it is a draw, but the challenge is not "Have a human check if a position is a draw" it's "Program a computer to check if a position is a draw". The latter is clearly extremely difficult, impractical, or impossible or it would be done already.

@Klartext Would this position be judged as a draw on other online platforms? ;)

Anyways.
I believe the entire insufficient-material-draw rule does more harm than good in online chess.

It's an exception to the baseline of "if you run out of time, you lose, period.", and it works alright in OTB chess where you have a human arbiter available (and where "flagging" is not supposed to be a valid strategy).
But here?

Time controls are much faster online compared to OTB, and flagging is much more of a feature instead of bad sportsmanship. Maybe it would not be the worst to just drop the insufficent material exception altogether. Would at least get rid of all these pointless discussions whether a position is "winnable" or not.

@mCoombes314 Indeed, thats my point. Detection of all drawn positions can not be done, at least not in practice. I dont have a big need to change the rules here on lichess. All i wish is that people would be more like 'Well, thats how we have chosen.' instead of acting as if their choice is more logical, which it is not. Both rules are unrelated to real world chess, as there is no referee, both can be automated for simple positions (ICCs rule by doing computer analysis / tablebase check in case of doubt), both will fail to detect all positions. Lichess´s is more simple, ICC´s is more fair regarding the actual position evaluation. But as with all topics with pro & contra the discussion will never end. I am willing to defend my balanced point of view whenever @Sarg0n, @lovlas and company are trying to spread their extreme viewpoint, usually using arrogance and FUD. Thats in the genes of all people which are one-sided.

@ProfDrHack I disagree with your view on flagging. While time has become an integral part of chess games, its importance will always stand behind the actual game goal, and that is to mate the king. If it is technical possible to detect the game result which fits most to the position evaluation then it should be done. However, just for simple positions with just knight or bishop as a line has to be drawn for the mentioned technical reasons (which also gets drawn in the current ruleset).