Talk:Fifty-move rule

message: "Drawn on move 70" Does this mean the 70th move of the game or 20 moves after the 50 move rule could have been invoked? Rmhermen 15:07 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:Of the game. I'll make it explicit. --Camembert
::I added a link to a page that contains the moves of the game. Oddly enough, there are two versions of the moves. The one in the page I linked to (Mad Aussie's) and the one found from Chess records. Chessgames.com doesn't have either of the games, which is a pity. However, I found the game from the database of the Chessmaster 9000 program and the moves were as in Mad Aussie's page: ending at 69. Kh2 Rd7 ½-½. --ZeroOne 13:28, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good.  Yes, the number of moves to a capture is what matters, since it restarts the 50-move counter.  Good edits.  Bubba73 (talk), 02:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: move 70

message: Should this perhaps be importance=Highrather than Mid?  I was marking pages on specific aspects of the official rules as High importance if they are something that the average club player or beginning tournament player would or should know.  I don't have a strong opinion on it but want to see what other people think rather than just changing it. Quale 15:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm the one that put in Mid importance.  i notice that in many cases you have rated things as being more important than I would.  However, I have no objections to changing it to High importance.  I didn't think it was very important because it rarely comes up - probably easily the least common form of a draw.  However, you are right in that it is something the club or tournament player should know.  Bubba73 (talk), 15:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Priority (importance) 

message: no game can continue in perpetuity. there are a finite number of possible positions in the game, and once each one has been repeated twice, it's a draw, right?
i think!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.128.51.51 (talk • contribs) 15 June 2007
:The point is that the draw must be claimed by either player. So the same position may be repeated more than three times if no player claims the draw, which usually happens though. --ZeroOne (talk | @) 11:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ...can continue forever... 

message: The article states, "The last capture occurred on White's 63rd move (and the last pawn move occurred before that). Black could have written his 112th move on his scoresheet and claimed a draw."  But if Black were to make his 112th move, it would be Black's 50th without a pawn move or capture (Black's 63rd through 112th), but White would only have moved 49 times with no pawn move or capture (White's 64th through 112th).  So the first opportunity to claim a draw under the 50-move rule would have been White's 113th move.  Am I missing something here, or should this be changed? Holy 18:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe you are correct.  I'll fix it a little later.  Bubba73 (talk), 21:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, it is correct to say that the draw can be claimed after White's 112th move.  Black can write down his 112th move, and if it is not a capture or pawn move, he can claim a draw.  (That would be the 50th consecutive move.)  Similarly for White on his 113th move. Bubba73 (talk), 01:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That was still not right, but the article is correct now.  White can claim it after black's 112th move by writing down a move that would be his 50th move w/o a capture or pawn move.  Bubba73 (talk), 05:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I think I was the one that got it somewhat wrong to begin with.  Bubba73 (talk), 18:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Black could claim draw in example game 

message: One should add some reasons as to whythis rule was adopted, e.g. by giving a list of endgames "typically" or always winnable within 50 moves.--129.70.14.128 (talk) 03:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know of a reference to why there is the rule, but it is obviously to keep a game from going on indefinitely.  The basic checkmates all require well under 50 moves - K+Q: 9 moves, K+R: 16 moves, K+2B: 19 moves, K+B+N: 33 moves - with perfect play by both sides.  K+Q vs. K+R, etc takes fewer than 50 moves to win.  The part about no capture or no pawn move is a pretty good indication of no progress being made otherwise.  But now there are quite a few rare endgames that require more than 50 moves (see pawnless chess endgames) - some require 66, some require hundreds.  Bubba73 (talk), 03:47, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe all 4-pieces endgames require less than 50 moves? It would be a somewhat "natural" limit then. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 21:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

text:  All four-piece endgames without pawns require fewer than 50 moves to win, if a win can be forced.  But most endgames have more than four pieces.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 21:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  And with pawns, each pawn move resets the count. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 21:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the info; then I don't know a good explanation either.... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 20:11, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought that K+R vs K+B could take more than 50 moves to resolve. WHPratt (talk) 21:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  King and rook versus king and bishop is almost always a draw.  The rook can win if it can quickly win the bishop (a fork or skewer within a couple of moves) or in some cases if the king and bishop are cornered in the wrong corner (the bishop is on the same color as the corner square).  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 21:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

text:  The rook and bishop versus rook endgame often bumps up against the 50-move rule.  Most positions are a theoretical draw with optimal play.  But it is difficult to defend, and the superior side often keeps playing.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 23:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe that's the one that I had in mind.  Thanks.  WHPratt (talk) 04:12, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reason for the rule 

message: I changed this from High importance to Mid importance.  Although similar rules such as threefold repetition are High (I think), the fifty move rule is rarely used, compared to threefold repetition.  If you think it should be high, change it back.  Bubba73 (talk), 20:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is viewed about 100 times per day, though.  Bubba73 (talk), 21:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Change from high to mid importance

message: There are some references for the rule for some positions being 75 moves in the late 1980s.  However, I now have the 1985 and 1989 rulebooks (there are none in between) and they don't say anything about 75 moves.  The 100 move rule for some positions existed in 1985 but in 1989 it was changed to 50 moves for all positions.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 18:12, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm still trying to sort out the history of when the rule was extended past 50 moves.  I'm getting rulebooks to try to fill in the history.  Books other than rulebooks conflict with what official rulebooks say. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 17:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  75 moves in the late 1980s 

message: I removed the paragraph about the irreversible moves - it has been unreferenced since December, 2011.  I checked several rulebooks and books about the history of chess, and none of them said anything about irreversible moves.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 16:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  paragraph removed 

message: It seems the "Statement of rule" section needs to be edited. It currently states "Theoretically, a game could continue indefinitely this way..." but this is what the new rule 9.6b (added in 2014) is targeting:
any consecutive series of 75 moves have been completed by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture. If the last move resulted in checkmate, that shall take precedence.
(FIDE Handbook) so that no game is even allowed to continue indefinitely, even if neither player is claiming. -Håkan 148.177.129.211 (talk) 07:57, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 19:28, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing this out.  I tried to explain the 2014 rule, feel free to improve it if you find a better wording.  Rule 9.6a might deserve mention in three-fold repetition.  Quale (talk) 04:11, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's better.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:47, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  New 75 move rule 

message: When I started playing chess, I read through the FIDE rules in the back of my chess textbook (in a Norwegian translation, but I don't think it matters). I clearly remember them discussing the 50-move rule, but they had a variation I haven't seen in the history section here: It stated that if “the experts” (without further qualifications; probably meant as “prevailing endgame theory” or something) had determined a position to require more than 50 moves to mate, the player would be given twice the amount of moves said experts deemed necessary to mate.
Does anyone else remember such a rule? If so, can it be inserted at its right place in the history? Sesse (talk) 20:38, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that was the rule for several years.  I think this is discussed in the history section.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 21:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh, I see now; they're just older than I thought: “In 1928 FIDE enacted rules that if an endgame theoretically requires more than 50 moves to force checkmate, twice that number of moves were allowed.”- Sesse (talk) 13:58, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  The rule was still in effect when I started playing in the late 1960s.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 15:04, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intermediate “double amount” rule