Analog Chess – pieces are not constrained to a grid

Re:Analog Chess – pieces are not constrained to a grid by logicallee on Friday January 13, 2023 @01:12PM (#34371591)

In chess, you win when you are "about to" capture the opponent's king on your next move, which is called putting them in check, and there's no way for the other side to avoid it (block or move out of check).

So I've always found it very bizarre that if it's a player's move, but any possible move would put their own king in check, then it is a draw (rather than a loss).

This leads to a situation where one side can have almost no pieces left, perhaps only the king, but still somehow draw since the king can't move anywhere where it wouldn't be captured.

I imagine a king all by himself peeping his head out out for a place to move, but everywhere is covered by snipers, so, since he can't move anywhere without getting captured, despite being overwhelmed by enemy forces he yells out a la monte Python "So we'll call it a draw then!"

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Re:Analog Chess – pieces are not constrained to a grid by hgsgm on Friday January 13, 2023 @01:30PM (#34371879)

It's because chess was invented by programmers, and stalemate means "the game is broken because there are no legal moves so it's impossible to continue", so we call it a draw.

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Re:Analog Chess – pieces are not constrained to a grid by a_cardboard_box on Friday January 13, 2023 @01:52PM (#34372177)

You can also tell it's made by programmers because of the en passant "feature", which clearly only exists due to the programmers' incomplete implementation of the 2-square first move.

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Re:Analog Chess – pieces are not constrained to a grid by barakm on Saturday January 14, 2023 @02:33AM (#34378120)

Your post and air quotes for “feature” are hella snide. In chess code, en passant is an edge case that takes a lot of code to cover, and not just some bug due to incompleteness.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself. And yes, check pun intended.

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Re:Analog Chess – pieces are not constrained to a grid by pbhjpbhj on Friday January 13, 2023 @03:25PM (#34373399)

Maybe if you think of it in terms of the opposition falling to put you in check despite you only having a king left? Your army chased the opposing king to the forest but failed to defeat him, be gets to live out his days as a hermit. You are denied 'satisfaction'.

In my family, against my children, it's a running joke that I'll almost always fail to win, and stalemate them.

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