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Jeremy Lennert wrote on Sat, Dec 31, 2011 07:10 PM UTC:

The FIDE rules cover situations that can occur in FIDE Chess. If a variant allows new situations to arise (such as having multiple Kings, or two pieces in the same square, or Pawns on the first rank), it has to specify how to resolve them; they are not covered simply by saying 'FIDE rules apply'. (Ralph Betza once attempted to codify a few rules that were used often in variants as 'Rule Zero', but while he undoubtedly used those rules a lot, I'm not sure whether they're any more common in general than other options, and in any case are not extensive enough to save very much repeating.)

If you're trying to discern the 'spirit' of the rule, I believe it came about something like this:

  1. Initially, the goal of the game was to capture the enemy King, and 'check' didn't matter.
  2. People got annoyed when an interesting game ended prematurely because one player made a dumb mistake that allowed his King to immediately be captured, so they decided to prevent that by making it illegal. Thus, if you make a move that would cause you to lose on the VERY next turn, you must take it back and do something else (if you have any other choice).
  3. To get the current FIDE rules, you need to add the additional rule that a player who is not in check but who cannot move without placing himself in check (that is, a player in 'stalemate') receives a draw instead of a loss. It's not obvious (at least to me) why this should be so, and historically various players have resolved stalemates in just about every different way you could imagine, but the modern accepted resolution is a draw.

So the 'spirit' of the rule (in my opinion) is 'the REAL goal of the game is to capture the enemy king, but as a safety net, you're not allowed to make any move that would allow your opponent to win on the very next move.' In a variant that nullifies this safety net and allows you to place yourself in check, the most natural rule would be that the game is won by capturing the King, and placing yourself in 'check' is generally a poor strategy but otherwise has no special significance.


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