zdrakec wrote:
1. Draws may not be agreed.
2. Three-fold repetition shall be illegal. That is, the player having
the move may not make a move that repeats the position for the
third time.

This is a book-keeping nightmare. As it is, if the players miss an
opportunity to claim a draw by repetition, nothing happens. Under
your proposed rule, if the players don't notice a repetition, one of
them has made an illegal move.

By analogy, I refer to the ko rule in Go, which essentially
prevents the same position from appearing on the board more than
once (with some rather esoteric exceptions).

The exceptions aren't esoteric at all. There are two versions of the
ko rule: one says you can't repeat a position, ever, period; the other
says that your move cannot return the board to the state it was in
after your last move.


3. There shall be no 50-move limit. This becomes more practical than
it once was, in an age where clocks can have a delay, and can add
a time increment per move.

It become *less* practical than it once was, in an age where
tournaments with multiple rounds in a day are common.

4. Since the object of the game is to place the opponent's king in a
position from which it cannot avoid being captured, I suggest that
stalemate should be a loss for the stalemated player. In
principal, the player who has stalemated his opponent has
accomplished the primary goal of the game. Of course, this has
been suggested many times before.

Indeed, it has been suggested many times before. And every time it is
suggested, somebody points out that the proposed change means that
essentially any pawn-up endgame is won, which means that players will
be much less willing to sacrifice pawns and will lead to duller chess.

I am not certain, but that would seem to leave lack of mating
material as the sole way to draw a game.

That is correct.


Dave.

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