Stalemate = Win variant!

The recent AlphaZero papers have gathered a lot of traction, especially the variant where stalemate = win. I think it'd be pretty fun if lichess could add this as a variant and it'd also help players get a feel for it. It's a subtle change but it could be the future of chess! What do you think?

It's not the future, neither for whole chess nor for a specific variant. It would override plenty of basic endgame theory.

I think chess has more beauty and subtlety if stalemate is considered as a draw.

It depends what you mean by win...

If the player who cannot move wins, this has virtually no impact (since it is challenging to force the opponent to deliver stalemate).

If the player who cannot move loses, this would make endgames more boring than they already are.

A recent study with alpha zero shows it has no significant impact on game deciciveness, but it does lose on beauty of the game.
It is for sure not the future of chess.
The future of chess is probably chess960 rapid, like the recent St. Louis tournament.

I think the only not win stalamate is this kind of: lichess.org/9FIgG2Gv

Sounds to me like we could also change rules then like "Taking the queen wins the game" instead of taking the king, i don't get the point, just to come up with some new idea. Or like saying first one to occupy with three pieces the 5th rank wins...

How about "king to the center of the board wins"?

I play the King of the Hill variant. Almost no draws are possible with this one. Why aren't they looking at King of the Hill? Funny thing I've won more games in KotH than I do in any other variant. I'm puzzled.

Thank you for sharing your opinions! I was particularly influenced by this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqFykCZ4I34 and thought it might be worth sharing!