lichess.org
Donate

Timeout vs insufficient material

Well I just played an amazing game. Opponent was left only with a knight and king while I had a pawn more. The thing is I lost the game when I got timed out. I am so mad right now. There was no single way for him to checkmate, even if I cooperated with him. How is that even possible?! It should be fixed ASAP :(
You must have known that for a draw you had to eat a pawn. Until the pawn is destroyed the game continues. You say it's a draw, but there's no judge on the Internet. There is an automatic fixation of the simplest endgame. In addition, the blitz is played not only on the position but also on time. Do not be upset in vain. Accept the rules of the Internet blitz and enjoy the game.
It doesn't even require the pawn. I lost a game in a similar way, but I thought by reducing down to just having knights I could force the draw. I will say that if you can get down to just kings and one knight, that is stalemate.

<iframe src="lichess.org/embed/4Ao8vcoX#144?theme=auto&bg=auto"
width=600 height=397 frameborder=0></iframe>
@Sarg0n Why is the black knight cooperating in your study? On many occasions the king could have swept the pawn up, and then for both players, unless I am mistaken, you cannot force checkmate.
If the black knight was to co-operate with the white, wouldn't that be considered sandbagging?
Black lost on time, it's as simple as that.

Now, there's one exception, that is when there's absolutely no possible, however improbable, way to checkmate. Then the game is declared a draw by insufficient material. Here the checkmate is possible, it is improbable, but still possible. So there's enough material to checkmate, thus it isn't a draw.
Yeah, sticking to the basics, @bufferunderrun.

The clock is desicive. Always and ever. With that exception there's ZERO, NULL, LOVE, NIL, NO way to mate.

You guys are obviously right. But to me when there is not enough material to force mate, draw makes more sense to me. In this case if I had given away my knight and pawn, it was a draw, so it's kinda like I'm being punished for playing well. Thank you all though.

This topic has been archived and can no longer be replied to.