Chess Titans - Why was this a draw?

KVW

Can someone explain to me why this was recorded as a draw for me? I'm white and I have taken care of every black piece on the board and put the king in checkmate. Is this a known bug with Chess Titans? This is the third time it's done this to me. Sometimes it records it as a win, sometimes a draw even if I clearly win.

khain

Black isn't in checkmate, you needed your queen to be next to the bishop to do that. I assume its black's turn and since he can't move any pieces its a draw.

badpoet

No idea. Is there a move limit?

wasted pixels

It's a stalemate. Black has no moves that don't put him in check.

Djeet

Assuming it's Black's turn you've stalemated. Black is not in check and has nowhere to go.

Khavall

Maybe you are confused on the concept of check.

By which I mean that is not a threatened king.

grungebox

btw, from what I know it's a common strategy for the losing player to try and trap you into a draw, since it's worth more than a loss in terms of chess points or whatever. You need to adjust your strategy accordingly, since a draw isn't a win. Kind of like how a really overmatched soccer team might play super defensive in hopes of a 0-0 draw.

Willeth

Can someone explain to me a couple of chess rules, while we're here?

I was of the understanding that:

A stalemate and a checkmate are not in the rules of chess. A chess game ends when the King is captured. However, when the King threatened and cannot move where he would not be, this obviously has only one conclusion and so there is no need to play the final two moves. In this sense, a checkmate is a courtesy.
Now, this is a similar situation, except that the King is not currently in check, but every move possible would cause him to be. If stalemate and checkmate were ignored, Black would have to move and be captured on his next turn, resulting in a win for White.

Am I horribly mistaken?

Khavall

Willeth wrote: »

Can someone explain to me a couple of chess rules, while we're here?

I was of the understanding that:

A stalemate and a checkmate are not in the rules of chess. A chess game ends when the King is captured. However, when the King threatened and cannot move where he would not be, this obviously has only one conclusion and so there is no need to play the final two moves. In this sense, a checkmate is a courtesy.
Now, this is a similar situation, except that the King is not currently in check, but every move possible would cause him to be. If stalemate and checkmate were ignored, Black would have to move and be captured on his next turn, resulting in a win for White.

Am I horribly mistaken?

Yes.

First, I believe both a stalemate and a checkmate are in the rules of check.

Second, the king cannot legally move to be threatened.

tony_important

This pretty much covers it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_rules

Willeth

Khavall wrote: »

Willeth wrote: »

Can someone explain to me a couple of chess rules, while we're here?

I was of the understanding that:

A stalemate and a checkmate are not in the rules of chess. A chess game ends when the King is captured. However, when the King threatened and cannot move where he would not be, this obviously has only one conclusion and so there is no need to play the final two moves. In this sense, a checkmate is a courtesy.
Now, this is a similar situation, except that the King is not currently in check, but every move possible would cause him to be. If stalemate and checkmate were ignored, Black would have to move and be captured on his next turn, resulting in a win for White.

Am I horribly mistaken?

Yes.

First, I believe both a stalemate and a checkmate are in the rules of check.

Second, the king cannot legally move to be threatened.

Fair enough. I was sure I'd read somewhere that the King not being allowed to move to a threatened space was just a technicality, though.

Organichu

Kings are not captured. They are threatened (i.e. it would be possible for them to be captured on their opponent's next turn). This is called being placed in check. When you are in check you must respond to it by placing your king in a position where he is not directly threatened- either by capturing the threatening piece or by moving your king or by interspersing another piece between the threatening piece and your king etc.

As has been mentioned, the first post's picture is of a stalemate. It's black's turn and any maneuver made will place the king in check. Since it is intrinsically against the rules of chess to move into check, no moves can be made on the chessboard. Ergo, stalemate|draw.

PirateJon

Technicality? It's the most basic rule of chess.

1.2 The objective of each player is to place the opponent`s king `under attack` in such a way that the opponent has no legal move. The player who achieves this goal is said to have `checkmated` the opponent`s king and to have won the game. Leaving one’s own king under attack, exposing one’s own king to attack and also ’capturing’ the opponent’s king are not allowed. The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game.

Willeth

Organichu wrote: »

Kings are not captured. They are threatened (i.e. it would be possible for them to be captured on their opponent's next turn).

I think this kind of terminology is what caused me to think it was a technicality, though. They can't be captured but they would be captured next turn? It's odd logic, at least to my ten-year-old chess-learning mind that never bothered to research further.

I'm wrong though. :P

Khavall

No more a technicality than white moving first, the game being over when the king is threatened with no way out, or the horsies moving all weird.

Jerry

Willeth wrote: »

Khavall wrote: »

Willeth wrote: »

Can someone explain to me a couple of chess rules, while we're here?

I was of the understanding that:

A stalemate and a checkmate are not in the rules of chess. A chess game ends when the King is captured. However, when the King threatened and cannot move where he would not be, this obviously has only one conclusion and so there is no need to play the final two moves. In this sense, a checkmate is a courtesy.
Now, this is a similar situation, except that the King is not currently in check, but every move possible would cause him to be. If stalemate and checkmate were ignored, Black would have to move and be captured on his next turn, resulting in a win for White.

Am I horribly mistaken?

Yes.

First, I believe both a stalemate and a checkmate are in the rules of check.

Second, the king cannot legally move to be threatened.

Fair enough. I was sure I'd read somewhere that the King not being allowed to move to a threatened space was just a technicality, though.

It is in the rules of chess, to the point of being a little annoying. You can castle (move the king 2 spaces and the rook next to him), but one of the things that prevents this move is if your king is threathened on any of the squares he moves onto.

KVW

Hmm, never played any computer chess before nor any tournaments or anything official, so was confused as to why that didn't win it for me. So, basically, because he can't move, he can't be threatened and therefore teh game cannot end and it's a draw.

Thanks for clearing that up. Usually call that a win in my favour offline since black can't do anything without losing. I'll have to remember that next time. We usually just turn the king over in this instance and save stalemates for 50 plys or "actual" stalemates where we just end up moving in circles. Have to watch out for this in the future then.

Sir Carcass

Also, if you see the king move back and forth between the same 2 squares repeatedly, get ready for a draw.