no need to revise the rule so often: a new position involving longer mate is found once in a while, half a decade or so. not very big burden on programmers, is it?Evert wrote:Let me rephrase this differently.Evert wrote: I'll ask you again: how is it more unjust to be deprived of a win than to be deprived of a draw?
Once upon a time, it was realised that there are 5-men positions that could be won, except for the 50-move rule kicking in (I remember it came up during a Timman-Yusupov game). In current parlance, they are cursed wins. This was deemed unfair, and the rule was changed so it was 50 moves, except in certain endings where it was 75.
Just a few years later, more cursed wins, with longer move chains, were discovered. It was realised that the rule as it was just made arbitrary exceptions, and was not fair. So a choice had to be made:
1. Keep the unfair rule as it was.
2. Revise the rule every time a new cursed win was found.
3. Abolish the rule entirely.
4. Revert to the plain 50-move rule.
Obviously, 4 was the choice made. The other options all have more undesirable features (arbitrary, not scalable, open for abuse).
Now, you claim that the existence of cursed wins makes the game less interesting, at least for computer chess, and the cursed wins should be treated as normal wins. In effect, this is option (2) above, but we might as well consider (3) because as technology improves, that's what it'd end up coming down to anyway. Does this make for a better game? I'll argue why I think it does not. You're free, of course, to push for your "Tsvetkov's Chess" that has different rules.
First of all, many of these extremely long wins feature move sequences that are utterly incomprehensible. Is it interesting as a spectator game? Not really.
More importantly, the game-theoretic value of the opening position of FIDE Chess is (almost certainly) a draw. It's possible that this is entirely due to the 50-move rule. We don't know the outcome of Chess without this rule. If it's still a draw, then it doesn't really matter much in the end. On the other hand, perhaps the opening position is really a cursed win. If that is the case, abandoning the 50-move rule makes the game a win for white.
So, what is more interesting: a game where Black's job is to defend the draw and keep White from winning by playing accurately, or a game where Black's job is to hope White makes a mistake, because there's nothing he/she can actually do themselves to affect the outcome of the game?
besides, we do not need to necessarily include all such longer mates, but simply include as many as possible with a reasonable approach, so that the damage is minimised. If you include 500 positions and leave out some 40 or 50, the damage will be minimised, while a shorter draw rule could be enforced. but I guess variable length rule is about the best approach.
the real problem is that outdated rule greatly impacts on engine strength. If SF hits on average 30 000 000 tbs positions and 300 000 of them are cursed wins, imagine the impact on SF's playing strength and choice of moves, at each and every ply. that is the real problem, engine strength is adversely affected, why allow that?
no one knows if the starting position is a win for white or a draw, at least at the current point in time. Many presume it should be a draw, but white wins at TCEC and other high-end competitions only go on increasing in numbers... Top engine scores for most opening positions also only tend to increase... So please wait a while, before coming to a conclusion. that is actually one of the aims of extending the rule: to allow strong engines to tell us what the theoretical game outcome is, and they will never do that, if restricted by any meaningless rules.
