The "Draw Problem" and other Flawed Reasoning

The author's intention is to provide an alternative to chess that is not too different from regular chess, but provides a sufficiently unique environment that is even more challenging and exciting. The author is not of the opinion that chess needs to be fixed or that excessive draws are a problem for chess. The author, however, does recognize that too much opening theory knowledge has made the game less exciting especially in games between 2100+ rated players.

The author specifically rejects dubious claims that chess is flawed as well as moronic charges that chess is "broken"! These idiots who barely learned the rules of chess then propose to eliminate the concept of stalemate from chess!

White has surrounded black but not checked the black king. Black has no legal move and this is considered a draw. Does the player with the white pieces having clumisily positioned his pieces here deserve anything more than a draw? Visualize it as follows: White wasted its forces in surrounding the escape squares, while the black king found an outlet - a place to hide so he will never be seen again. He never "makes a move" again! Or think that the objective is for you to behead the enemy king! If the enemy king commits suicide, and sets himself on fire - you cannot behead it! Or think of it as requiring a King's crown, and the King has time to destroy it during stalemate.

So is there are draw problem in Chess? NO! No! There is no draw problem. What are you? A GM? A 2220+ rated player? Only high rated players experience more draws (when playing other equally high rated players!)

The problem is that at high levels of chess, the openings that have been analyzed to death, are more important in securing an advantage, and once Black has equalized in the opening lines, there is not much that two high quality players can do except try for a unsound attack, which they will not do. This is not an intrinsic flaw of the game but a problem with playing a game where every single line has been studied so much so that it is very difficult to find a novel continuation.

This is a problem unique to very high rated players, and the majority of players need not worry about opening lines that run forty moves deep. And if they do, they will get slaughtered by competent players who will mostly likely deviate from the "accepted" lines of play.

The other problem slightly related to this is the tendency of GMs to agree to a draw too early. This is clearly something that the governing bodies can prevent. For example, disallow draw offers unless the position can be deemed to be a draw by qualified arbiter..

Clearly, this has nothing to do with the game itself and merely with GMs, their conduct and high level competition rules. So who are the people making these charges?

Most people making charges such as banning stalemate etc are losing players who have not understood that you must learn tactics and generally play the game to improve. Instead, they read opening books, follow up on GM games and generally waste time on the internet arguing that chess is flawed.

Blocked Pawns: - Another idiotic charge that is commonly made. Sure you can design a chess variant in which the pawns are not blocked, e.g. see Capture the Scepter. But, to deny the fact that this game has been played without complaints for so long is a bit too much. Most likely, the player does not possess sufficient skill in unblocking actions such as sacrificing a piece or pawn to make a run for the backrank.

Three-Move Repetition Draw: - Some idiots actually suggest that this should be eliminated. They point to Shogi's somewhat flawed rule that perpetual check is disallowed.
Since the morons who tout this nonsense are C-Class players who can never achieve more than 2-3% draws at most, their opinions are worthless!

There is no doubt that the Stalemate, Three-Move Repetition, Perpetual Check (that leads to 3-move repetition or 50 move draw), and 50 move draw are improvements over the original (and lost) game that originated in India. It does seem like the chess variants in the East do not seem to address draws as well as the Western chess game. Additionally, it seems that the lower piece power in the Eastern variants make those rules more palatable than if was applied to Western Chess.

Controversy within? - Or just a few stupid patzers with nothing to do?

In my game Asylum Chess the pieces may seem to be overpowered. But it is a fun game to try out.