This 1999 stalemate rule was used a year later in Peter Hatch's Fantasy Grand Chess. Now I have no objection to carefully defined Stalemate Victory conditions. I just finished adding a new diagram to the Notes section of my old game Jumping Knights Chess, which has some very strange stalemate wins. While reading the Grand Chess page, I noticed the following comment by Johnny Luken [2015-04-13].
"Fair points, but I'm really talking about more extreme cases.
Is a stalemated king vs 3 queens a legitimate draw? I don't so.
The only counterargument to that is "gee well the other player shouldn't so sloppy as to let the king be stalemated." But to me thats a moot point. Dominant player shouldn't be obligated to give the weaker player a legal move."
White Bishop to (c1) is a legal move in a legal position. Time for people to stop throwing words at this (perceived) problem and simply choose one of three possible outcomes here: "1-0" or "1/2-1/2" or "0-1". Incidentally, if this was a position in a Grand Chess game, the Black Pawn would still be outside its promotion zone.
[EDIT 2023-09-04] Positions like this one need to be studied before inventing new rules for chess. I just finished posting a Comment to High Chess, with a similar diagram.
This 1999 stalemate rule was used a year later in Peter Hatch's Fantasy Grand Chess. Now I have no objection to carefully defined Stalemate Victory conditions. I just finished adding a new diagram to the Notes section of my old game Jumping Knights Chess, which has some very strange stalemate wins. While reading the Grand Chess page, I noticed the following comment by Johnny Luken [2015-04-13].
"Fair points, but I'm really talking about more extreme cases.
Is a stalemated king vs 3 queens a legitimate draw? I don't so.
The only counterargument to that is "gee well the other player shouldn't so sloppy as to let the king be stalemated." But to me thats a moot point. Dominant player shouldn't be obligated to give the weaker player a legal move."
White Bishop to (c1) is a legal move in a legal position. Time for people to stop throwing words at this (perceived) problem and simply choose one of three possible outcomes here: "1-0" or "1/2-1/2" or "0-1". Incidentally, if this was a position in a Grand Chess game, the Black Pawn would still be outside its promotion zone.
[EDIT 2023-09-04] Positions like this one need to be studied before inventing new rules for chess. I just finished posting a Comment to High Chess, with a similar diagram.