Very bad idea. For one it would mean that games would drag on nearly forever if they happen to reach KBBKN (or KQKQ), and the engines do not know how to win it (as would almost always be the case).Lyudmil Tsvetkov wrote:Why not add a paragraph or 2 in UCI/winboard protocols, with following text:
' Engines implementing the UCI/winboard protocol follow the FIDE Rules of Chess, with the exception of the 50-moves rule.
For the purposes of engine competition, the FIDE 50-moves rule is transformed into 2 subrules:
1. the general 50-moves FIDE rule applies throughout the game, with the exception of pawnless endgames.
2. only in pawnless endgames, the 50-moves rule is extended to 550-moves rule (the longest known such mate being 1090 plies), to accomodate relevant winning positions.'
very consise, and very reasonable.
And of course this is not a protocol matter. You are just changing the rules of the game, and protocols do not involve themselves with the rules. In fact you are defining just another Chess variant, and WB and UCI already have g eeral mechanisms for handling variants. Just let the engine report they play 'variant fivehundredfifty', and then run a tourney for this variant.