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Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Thu, Sep 1, 2005 02:57 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

actually the case of kings on a1 and c2 pawn on a2 is a success for
showdown chess because it makes a win for black instead of a draw, which
would happen in normal chess after white plays Kc1 (this is a replacement
for normal chess not shatranj).
Black must of played the brilliant (he he) ... a3-a2!! thus winning the
game. You are just looking at the 'normal' rules if you are disappointed
at 'having' to move your king away, you should not of got yourself in
that position.
Of course, i don't like these attempts to make chess with less draws, i
am in favor of giving (as far as tournaments go) either no points for
draws, same as losing, or 2 points for wins, half for draws, but best
would be to come up with a different chess altogether ha ha, but not those
variants with rook/knight and bishop/knight combo's. Terrible pieces :)
we should go back to good old 4 handed chaturanga :)
anyway, showdown chess is at least an attempt to somehow address the major
promblem of the terrible state of draws in modern chess, i don't think it
deserves a 'poor' rating so i will throw in a 'good'.

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Comments

Showdown Chess. No draws permitted. (8x8, Cells: 64)

H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Jan 2, 2021 08:33 AM UTC in reply to Benjamin Silversten from 01:17 AM:

I don't think the rules as given are viable. Stalemate is defined as a condition where you don't have legal moves, but are not in check. Making a move illegal that cause stalemate thus makes a recursive definition, where it is not clear that the recursion will always terminate.

They also do not address the 50-move problem. What if a game ends in K+R vs K+R? There exists over 10 million positions with this material, so it would be really tedious to force a repeat. But since there is no way to force checkmate, you would eventually be forced to repeat. Which is illegal. But you might not be in check. which makes it a stalemate. Which makes the previous move illegal. But other moves there might (directly or indirectly) suffer from the same problem, so now that position would be a stalemate too. Etc.

I suppose that eventually one of the players would be forced to sacrifice its Rook as the only legal option, but it seems pretty much undeterminable which player that would be. That applies to every position that under normal rules would be a dead draw, e.g. K+B+N vs K+B+N.

Benjamin Silversten wrote on Sat, Jan 2, 2021 01:17 AM UTC:Poor ★

Really? Insufficient material? What if the opponent has insufficient material?

Michael Nelson wrote on Thu, Sep 1, 2005 08:44 PM UTC:

For a drawless chess, amend FIDE rules as follows:

1. Stalemate is a loss for the stalemated player.
2. Triple repetion is a loss for the repeating player.
3. If fifty moves by both sides have elapsed since the last capture or
Pawn move, the player who made the last capture or Pawn move may claim a
win.

David Paulowich wrote on Thu, Sep 1, 2005 01:06 PM UTC:

After 40 years of tournament chess, I can imagine a lot of positions. For example: WHITE K(a1) and B(d3), BLACK K(a3) and N(d2), followed by the moves 1.Bb1 Nb3 checkmate. Conclusion: Rule 3 of Showdown Chess does not forbid the endgame K+B versus K+N.

Fergus Duniho used the word 'recursive' in an earlier post. Which raises a host of additional questions.

Devinjc wrote on Thu, Sep 1, 2005 03:48 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

In dealing with situations such as K+N vs K+B, I cannot imagine the
position in which the K+N mates, and the K+B mate would be hard to
achieve. I forsee a bigger problem being a K+R vs K+R endgame.

One solution to this problem is to exclude some multi-piece endgames as
illegal position. This would make the game more complex, as tactical
exchaning sequences would have to be evaluated for their legality. This
could make the game more interesting on one hand.

Number of ratings: 4, Average rating: Average, Number of comments: 12

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