Line #23 Headscratchers/Chess


1	* The En Passant rule makes no sense.
2	** The ''en passant'' rule was developed after someone came up with the "pawns can move two spaces on their first turn" one and was put in as a fix so that they couldn't get past attackers magically. It's difficult to explain without a board, but you get the idea.
3	** Somehow, it's okay that other pieces can move past others magically, but how dare a pawn attempt advancing past another - we have to give the other pieces a special ability to capture it without even capturing it!
4	*** Please note that only pawns are able to capture ''en passant''. Yes, it's a magical ability, but so is being able to move twice in one move.
5	*** The oppression of the pawns is one of the great social outrages of the western boardgame world.
6	*** Even ComicStrip/{{Mafalda}} [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MeK0jFXbWMg/SglMTe3ZtHI/AAAAAAAAAEY/-y5vLAvRXiw/s1600-h/mafalda+ajedrez+comunismo.gif realized]] it.
7	** In the interest of being a spoilsport (and a giant geek), the "Pawn moves two spaces in their first move" was created for the sole reason to hasten the start of the game (since otherwice the game tended to be 1) e2-e3, e7-e6 2) e3-e4, e6-e5). It wasn't intended to give any strategical boost. It then took about five seconds for about five million chess players to figure out that the until-then strategy of putting a pawn at 4/5 file in order to stop the two pawns that could only move to the two squares that he was attacking from moving was side-stepped by them simply double-move to the side of the attacking piece. The En Passant rule was an ObviousRulePatch to eliminate this. [Cue WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero music].
8	** If we really care for realism, then chess is supposed to simulate a real battle, and everything takes place in real time. The alternating turns are just an abstraction, and one move (one for white, one for black) happens the same time. So, the pawn tries to move two spaces, and is captured before it can complete the move. This makes sense, as the en passant rule can only be used immediately after the double pawn move, if your next move is not an en passant, you will not be allowed to perform it later.
9	*** But why doesn't the above realism logic apply to other pieces?
10	*** pawns originally moved only one square. All other pieces that can move multiple squares can still do it. To speed up the game pawns were allowed to move two on their first move. This allowed for pawns to bypass being attacked, to correct it, en passant was created. If you don't understand en passant, use the rule that pawns can only move one square at all times. It will make sense why it exists. Specially if you need to use it to clear out pawns.
11	* Prior to 1972, it was possible to Castle using a promoted Rook. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke_chess_problem#Offbeat_interpretations_of_the_rules_of_chess Wikipedia]] notes how this would work using a Rook on the same file as the King, but how would it work if the Rook and the King were on different files?
12	** It wouldn't. And remember, you couldn't Castle if ''any of the E-File's'' is under attack or occupied. One in a million chance indeed.
13	*** You're slightly mistaken, it doesn't matter whether the Castling rook is under attack or passing though any attacked squares.
14	** This was never actually a thing; it's just a hoax. The original FIDE Laws of Chess from 1930 specified that castling is possible only with a king and a rook on the same rank.
15	* Why is Castling considered a King move, but not a Rook move?
16	** Because of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch-move_rule touch-move]].
17	*** That in no way explains why Castling isn't considered both a King move and a Rook move.
18	*** You could redraft the rules so that it's considered a "both a King move and a Rook move", but then you'd have to complicate the touch-move rule to specify that in castling you have to touch the king first to keep play working the same way. So why bother? (Ancestrally, castling comes from older forms of chess where the king was allowed to make various forms of leap as its first move, and the most common approach was moving the rook on one move and leaping the king on the next. Castling consolidated the two moves to speed up the game, and offset that with reduction in flexibility as to where you could move the king.)
19	*** Well, it ''is'' -- I'm just saying that the only reason to consider it ''primarily'' a King move is because that's the piece you have to move first.
20	** Let me rephrase my question, why do the rules require you to move the King first when you're Castling?
21	*** Because your move is over after you make a legal move and release the piece you moved - and moving your rook next to your king is a legal move. When you move your king two squares, it's clear that your move is not yet over when you release the king.
22	*** Wait, that just makes it worse. Now casting is made of ''two illegal moves'': moving the king ''two spaces'', and moving the rook ''through an occupied space!''
23	*** That's precisely what differentiates a castling move from a king move. A rook-castling move would be indistinguishable from a regular rook move. That the king-castling move is illegal as a king move makes it unambiguous.
24	*** Well, the castling rule just works that way. And moving the rook first could be be seen like you're gauging your opponent's reaction without committing yourself, similar how you can't attach a raise after you've called in poker.
25	* The rules for check and checkmate have always struck me as somewhat pointless. Instead of "you must deal with check because the rules say you have to", why not just leave it as "you really ought to deal with check because otherwise your opponent will take your king next turn"?
26	** Technically, the rules do not require you to deal with check: you can resign instead. Since the only alternative to dealing with being in check is to lose, not dealing with being in check is effectively to resign. There are certain customs, however, about the proper way to resign.
27	*** The rule that it's illegal to ignore check (and thus move into check) makes the game a little deeper by making stalemate possible (when one side has no legal moves to make on their turn, it's a draw). A basic example is Queen and King vs King. With this rule in effect, a careless player can stalemate the enemy King by using the Queen to completely restrict but not check it. Whereas if the king was allowed to move into check, almost all stalemates would be impossible, and, in the example, the side with the Queen would still win by taking the enemy King once it was forced to move into check. Famous games have occurred where one side, completely lost, forcibly gives away all their material in a series of checks, and after the last piece is taken, saves the game through the stalemate that suddenly appears.
28	*** What is so great about a stalemate anyway? If the most frequent outcome of a game is that nobody wins, it sounds like a major design flaw.
29	*** It's not particularly frequent. The most frequent result in master level is resignation, at junior level it is checkmate (because juniors can't see six moves in advance). What makes the stalemate rule an improvement is that [[WeHaveReserves attrition]] isn't a sure path to victory the way it is in checkers. Attrition is useful but no matter how far ground down a player, the superior player still has to watch. It also makes for counterintuitive nuances. For instance, it is common to promote to rook rather then queen, simply to make sure the opponent's king will have more places to run to until you are finally ready. ("Common" at the social level, maybe. Any competitive player would promote to Queen except in the vanishingly rare case that (i) doing so would ''necessarily'' stalemate and (ii) not promoting at all would be worse.)
30	** Another consideration is that, depending on the time and place, depicting the actual capture of the king was taboo. The check and checkmate rules ensure that the game ends before the king is captured.
31	** There are plenty of variants where there isn't a "you must deal with a check/cannot move into check" rule, mostly high-speed variants where it's easier to make big mistakes and decisive punishment is a bigger part of the skillset. Without those considerations it's kind of just a formality because it's what 99.9% of players would do anyway, and on the fringes it stops embarrassing ends to casual games and helps beginners understand the idea of forcing movement.
32	* Is the in-universe King of the real life World Champion the ruler of the [in-universe] world, or at least a very powerful overlord; because, you know, he just defeated some of the most powerful other lords out there?
33	** That would make sense, provided all chess games depict battles in the same in-universe world.
34	* Why is a position like [[https://lichess.org/editor/3kR3/2pp3r/8/7B/8/8/8/7K_w_-_-_0_1?color=white this one]] considered checkmate? After all, if the black king could take the white rook, the white bishop could not take the black king due to being pinned.
35	** If check prevents the bishop from moving out of the pin, then it prevents the black king from moving into the bishop's attack in the first place.

Context Headscratchers / Chess