| General Chess Discussion - Why is stalemate a draw instead of a win?#21 Simple answer: Stalemate is a draw because that's the rule that became popular. As Wikipedia reports, lots of different stalemate rules have been tried. But why should that rule have become popular? W… | Obtainer |
| General Chess Discussion - "Really Bad Chess"#3 Could be fun, yeah. I suspect a lot of positions will be a case of "how quick can you mate" against "how long can you survive", so maybe moves played could be considered part of the score? I should ge… | Obtainer |
| General Chess Discussion - behaviour of players seems strange#2 If a player resigns for no obvious on-the-board reason then they probably either got fed up of the game (I've quit against the computer for that reason) or had to do something else IRL. This is especi… | Obtainer |
| General Chess Discussion - Checkmate is now unavoidable after checkmate is already unavoidable#2 Link to game or position? Keep in mind that let's say "checkmate is now unavoidable" for black, that means it's unavoidable with correct play by white. But if white makes a mistake then checkmate can … | Obtainer |
| General Chess Discussion - Why does my rating go up when I lose?#6 Hmmm ... sounds like a bug. Even if it drops the variance or whatever, your estimated rating still should never rise from a loss in the Elo, Glicko, or Glicko-2 systems. | Obtainer |
| General Chess Discussion - Who is the player with the biggest and fastest progression?#2 Sergey Karjakin became a GM aged twelve - and he did it the 'proper' way by getting a 2500+ FIDE rating and GM norms in tournaments. (As opposed to being awarded the GM title for winning a junior tour… | Obtainer |
| General Chess Discussion - Lets play a community game! #27 9 h3. No g4 square for black. | Obtainer |
| General Chess Discussion - The reason chess pieces are white and black is...#3 White going first wasn't established until the late 19th century. Before then the player who moved first could choose colour. It may be that most players favoured black so the idea was that if you use… | Obtainer |
| Off-Topic Discussion - chess.com vs lichess: which is better?#13 I joined up here after lurking the chess.com, lichess, and red hot pawn forums for a bit. The chess.com forums are godawful, whereas things seem sensible here. I'm also promptly enjoying the tactics p… | Obtainer |