Clarkey #19
Actually technically statistically you are encouraging the breach of OTB chess rules as far as UK chess OTB is concerned, if you want to start talking about rules. The rules is basically being able to claim a draw in OTB chess if the opponent is making no effort whatsoever to win the position by normal means.
You will be in breach of this statistically with the current policy far more than anything else. Someone moving their single knight or bishop around with the aim of achieving a win on time is such a breach - and will draw people away from this site who have some knowledge of OTB chess, and the notion of winning by "normal means". It is actually in OTB rules. Check it out.
I don't want to be disagreeable, but you're asking to change a fairly well established FIDE rule. It won't be changed overnight, and it'd need very strong consideration before it becomes implemented.
Making an assumption concerning what may be played is VERY rocky territory. It's a slippery slope argument, but I wouldn't call a match between a 1200 vs 2500 rated player 0-1 before the match has been played. I'd need to let them play their game before I went predicting the future.
No Clarkey - in FIDE rated games (btw I am a FIDE CM), you can claim a draw in real life chess if the opponent is just trying to win on time. You could do this by stopping the clocks and finding an arbiter. Your site is currently against FIDE rules and local federaiton rules. Please don't think or claim otherwise.
The simple rule for "having sufficient mating material", kind of automates the idea of stopping the clocks and calling the arbiter for such claims of "oppnent not trying to win by normal means".
Ton clarify:
In all blitz games this site had where one side had a single bsihop or knight, and was not trying to win by "normal means" but instead of winning on time, is a scenario invalid in FIDE rules and most serious OTB rules. It represents actually quite a serious infration of rules. In real life OTB chess, the clocks could have been stopped either by the player or the arbiter, and a draw result actually forced if one of the sides was just trying to win "purely on time" without any "reasonable progress" being made.
However OTB extends this as well - in simple positions which are also theoretically drawn where there even exists mating material, but a player is making no visible "progress" it is still the case that someone could stop the clocks and call an arbiter to monitor "reasonable progress" and still force a draw.
BTW i wish I could edit my posts - at least just for a few seconds after.
As I said, it'd need further consideration and a decision won't be made today.
There's an incredibly large amount of end-games that may be won by a material stand-point, but not by a positional stand-point. A la, the position #13 pointed out - it's mate in 1 for black, and saying that white can just let their clock run to zero and claim draw is equally disheartening.
Because of this, I nor Thibault is about to jump in and make a ruling.
It may be more appropriate to hand these types of positions to Stockfish for an automated adjudication process. The details of which would need further resolving. I do not know for certain.
But I personally do not agree with saying 'there are X pieces on the board, it should be Y result' without any extra thinking.
KC has a point that if one side is making no efforts of winning, only playing on time, at OTB they can call an arbiter and demand a draw.
Lichess has a point too, because of that FIDE rule. In a way having a pawn vs a whole army left is helpmate too, like mating with a single bishop or knight.
Besides this
@KC, how do see a game that ends with 2 Knights left (K + 2 Knights vs King + let's say Queen). Should the party get a win, who has 2 Knights, if the other one's time runs out?
Where I am getting is what 'degree' of helpmate is ok and which isn't?
#28 Chubakka
It is just a single knight or single bishop as far as I am aware from ICC implementation.
A single pawn does count as "sufficient mating material" - the pawn could technically queen. There is a much greater probability I guess of "reasonable progress" being made in order to win.
I think the concept here is being able to assess "reasonable" progress in a resource un-intensive way. Assessing when someone has just left a single bishop or knight is just a simple heuristic for that.
Cheers, KC
Well, I can see both sides of the story. If one is commonly (or even the only one) used on the web, I can agree with it being used here as well.
