What do you think about the stalemate rule?

The history of the rule is quite tortuous: stalemate has been considered a win, an inferior win, a draw, illegal or even a loss for the side giving it (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalemate#History_of_the_stalemate_rule).

The main argument against this rule is that in the next turn the king will be captured, so it should be a win. But the goal of the game is not to capture the king, but to checkmate it -in fact, capture the king is simply not possible under the current rules.



"It's not a win, because it's not checkmate, and the game reach an end, because the stalemated side can't move" (Lasker, Manual of chess). I think that stalemate should be a win "by logic" only if the goal were capturing the opposite king.

Anyway, let's suppose we get rid of the "checkmate rule" and we had to capture the king to win the game. Let's consider an hypothetical situation like this, where one side can't literally move any piece:



What should be that? It can't be a win because neither king is captured.

However, rules don't have to be "logic", but "playable". In my opinion, the stalemate rule add profoundness to the endgame (at least it makes more difficult to me). And, from an aesthetic point of view, I think it resembles a not so uncommon situation of the ancient warfare where a general, after losing his army, manages to escape to the enemy. But that situation was far of being equal...

The goal is very specific and well defined; delivering a check from which the king cannot escape. Leaving a king stranded but not in check fails to meet that definition, so cannot be a win.

A stalemate ends in a Draw. An equable solution. In the 1st example, the pawn can not promote. The King can not make an illegal move. Result is a draw. 2nd position, neither side can win. Result is a draw. The rule as it stands is the best solution. The chances of it ever changing are zero.

You state by logic the side that creates the stalemate position should win. How is it "logical" when the side that does so has less material; as in the 2nd example? Why should White be awarded a win?? White has no legal moves that offer a chance of winning.

It's a draw because the stalemated side can't move. But you have to move in chess. And the goal of chess is not to capture the enemy king, but to attack it and cover all its escape routes. It's that simple.

So yes, I agree that it should be a draw.

I like the stalemate rule, but admittedly it does have the slight drawback that many online players play on until mate in hopes of it.

Personally I'd rather resign and start a new game.

It would become boring and lots of positions no-brainer mode:

KP-K simple win (even a- & h-pawn), checkmating the King with Q or R just moving without thinking, no ingenious defenses when material down, no wrong bishop and so on.

Some correspondence guys wanted this in order to overcome the „draw-death“ in corr. engine-assisted chess but it is dead anyway.

One of those „improvements“ which would make chess much worse.

NIgel Short is very much in favor of taking stalemate as a win and also claims that this would reduce the number of draws.

Personally, I am not convinced and believe that it would make the game (at the GM level at least) much more boring. My argument is that without stalemate you will play way more careful because you have less chances of saving a bad position. For example, you will not sac a pawn easily if you can no longer hold K+P vs. K. If we eliminate almost all pawn sacs, we take away one of the most valid ways in which you can generate interesting play.

@blindbeginner This doesn't matter much: if you can sac a pawn for the initiative, you can do it anyway, and the risks are not higher. Material is an integral part of the position, so it doesn't matter: eventually it can be the player with initiative who ends up with an extra pawn if the initiative is crushing. You should just evaluate well if the sac is worth itself.

KRPvKR has likely more influence on typical endgames than KPvK, and stalemate shouldn't affect KRPvKR much. I doubt, however, that such a way of reducing the number of draws will make the games more interesting. It is cool that under current rules a lot of games are decided in the endgame and players should show their technique there. Declaring stalemate a win for sure shifts the typical decisive part of the game towards middlegame.

So many endgames would be stale, mate! Chess would be broken, the consequences would be drastic.

See this gem, Bundesliga 2017: Black to move

lichess.org/editor/6k1/1r6/2r2P2/6K1/8/1P6/6Q1/8 b - -

I'm torn on this issue. No doubt making usual stalemates (notably K+P vs K) wins would make chess endgames a whole lot more interesting. You would see a lot more decisive results. People would play on in equal endgames instead of just taking draws.

But at the same time, you can't just throw centuries of chess understanding out the window. There's a difference between making these changes back in the 10th century and making changes in the 21st century after so much chess theory and understanding has already been developed.

I think that it's a drastic enough change to the game that it could exist as a variant, just call it something else. Like Chess960, it could have it's own separate events. But I wouldn't change the rules of chess.