It's defined that way because it makes endgames awesome -- counterintuitive, demanding of high skill, worth fighting out. Making stalemate a loss for the side with no moves degrades chess -- I cannot see how it is a better game when all K + P vs. K endgames, save the obvious exceptions, are trivially won.

In fact, with stalemate in place a lot of pawn-down endgames are draws. So are a decent number of two-pawn-down endgames and even positions with bigger deficits -- the extreme case being that two knights and a king against a lone king is a draw. This may not be normal in games, or it may be unjust from some perspective, but it makes endgames awesome, and I say that is enough.

But without stalemate all of these are easy wins. So I claim, on top of the ruining of endgames, that without the current stalemate rule the EV of positional pawn sacrifices or larger sacrifices in the opening or middlegame would go way down, and you would see much more cautious chess in general, because there would no longer be a chance to draw a worse endgame by reaching one of the many positions which are theoretical draws no longer because they depended on stalemate.

I don't want any of that.

That is not a chess world that I want to live in.

In my first 280 tournament games (USCF rating starting at 1300 and going up to mid-1700s over 2 1/2 years), I had a record of 108 wins, 119 losses, and 53 draws. I think my draw rate of 19% is close to average. Though, obviously I was usually playing opponents with higher ratings.

I think 20% draws is obscenely high against 1700 opponents. Stats to come later.

I think that's kind of a red herring. I'd argue that it's just the overall style of play has changed. My favorite book is still Bronstein's Zurich 1953, but the games in that book are like night and day compared to modern encounters. And those games were, by far, the highest and most competitive level of play for that time.

Nope, filtering to games with at least one player of 1500-1700 level, there is a result of:

1-0: 42%
1/2: 22%
0-1: 36%

Confounding variables. I was just looking over the data a bit more and the vast majority of these games have white as the slightly lower rated player. And very frequently they do entirely stupid things. Like a 1700 facing an 1800 plays to try to get a draw with white from move 1 which is just ridiculous.

An enormous number of these games ended before move 20 in very playable positions. I don't think this says anything about the drawiness of chess - but moreso about the fact that many lower to moderate strength players play like they've been castrated.

What database are you using? Is it comprised mostly of online blitz games?

I never played a tournament game faster than G/75 and the vast majority were either 40/2 SD/1, 40/90 SD/1, or 45/105, 25/1.


It's interesting that they were similar anyway.

No offense, but please use your brain. Why in the world would I be using an online blitz database to judge anything? Not to mention online blitz has a draw level far far far below 20%.

It's megabase 2009, so far as I know it includes the most premium collection of tournament games.

I've drawn 2 games out of 26 in the last 3 tournaments + league I've played, these were against players mostly 1800-2300 FIDE. I don't think I have a particularly wild style (though some might say erratic).

If you tighten it down to players within +/- 100 points of me then 20-30% is probably fairly accurate.

I'm around 2000 and have two draws out of my last 20 tournament games with players within 200 points of me. It jumps up to four out of 20 if I just include the last 20 games, and settles back down to eight out of my last 60 games overall, although that's going back to the beginning of 2008.

One of those eight was by three-times-repetition. Two were by insufficient mating material. The other five were by agreement: one because it was going to be a three-times-repetition, three because the endgames really were dead draws (in one I was about to get my king to the corner against a lone rook pawn, one was a blocked-up same-color bishop endgame where my king couldn't get in, and one was a really dead opposite-color bishop endgame which my opponent had already played out for like 40 moves), and one because it was an endgame which, while still having a number of pieces on the board, was equal and didn't seem to offer chances for either player.

Dire,

You're often offensive and rude to other posters. Instead of insulting somebody and then responding, why don't you try just responding?

I wasn't aware a "premium collection" of games for players rated under 1700 existed. That seems like a worthless database.

The ignorance you're putting fourth in your posts almost leads me to believe you're leveling here. I mean come on, implying if I'm inferring 'normal' results from an online blitz database? How dense can you get? The implications of your "question" alone are vastly more insulting than anything I've said. Unless you're too naive to realize the connotation of what you're saying, but I'm trying to give you a little bit of credit here. If only such courtesy was mutual.

Either way, I'll explain it to you. Megabase 2009 is chessbase's collection. It has most of every single relevant event/game from the past ~400 years. Shockingly enough, players under 1700 also tend to play in some events.

EDIT: And not that it matters, but who have I been explicitly rude to besides Captain Rybka, and now I suppose you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1HUlTKvDUI