The last rule to be added in chess regarding moves

[Kevin O'Rourke]

Hi just wondering what the last rule regarding chess was..

I assume it was the En Passant rule added later to stop pawns escaping capture unfairly.

Previous to that it must have been the castling rule which must have been invented speed up the game and stop people from just wasting time trying to get their king to a corner and get the rock to the centre.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I must try that in my next game, getting a rock to the centre...

[Kevin Thurlow]

I would have thought it's the requirement to touch the king first when castling? Or maybe how to promote a pawn.

You could argue they are only modifications of course.

I'm a bit worried about my next game against Chris!

[Michael Farthing]

These last two are different in character - they are not really rules of the game, but simply procedures for avoiding dispute. E.P. and castling fundamentally change the tactics and strategy of the game. Chess played without touch move or a clock or with an upside down rook as a queen is still the same game: chess played without castling is a different game.

[Michael Flatt]

I suggest it might have been classifying stalemate a draw rather than a win?

[Michael Farthing]

Not directly answering Michael's surmise, but I think this Wiki article might be of interest. If you want to look up the references I'm afraid you'll have to go back to Wiki for them:

History of the stalemate rule

The stalemate rule has had a convoluted history (Murray 1913:61). Although today stalemate is universally recognized as a draw, for much of the game's history that has not been the case. In the forerunners to modern chess, such as Chaturanga, stalemate was a win for the side administering it (Murray 1913:229,267). This practice persisted in chess as played in early 15th-century Spain (Murray 1913:781). However, Lucena (c. 1497) treated stalemate as an inferior form of victory (Murray 1913:461), which in games played for money won only half the stake, and this continued to be the case in Spain as late as 1600 (Murray 1913:833). The rule in England from about 1600 to 1800 was that stalemate was a loss for the player administering it, a rule that the eminent chess historian H. J. R. Murray believes may have been adopted from Russian chess (Murray 1913:60–61,466). That rule disappeared in England before 1820, being replaced by the French and Italian rule that a stalemate was a drawn game (Murray 1913:391).

Assume that Black is stalemated. Throughout history, such a stalemate has at various times been:

A win for White in 10th century Arabia (Davidson 1981:65) and parts of medieval Europe (Murray 1913:463–64, 781) (McCrary 2004:26).
A half-win for White; in a game played for stakes, White would win half the stake (18th century Spain) (Davidson 1981:65).
A win for Black in 9th century India (Murray 1913:56–57,60–61), 17th century Russia (Davidson 1981:65), on the Central Plain of Europe in the 17th century (Murray 1913:388–89), and 17th-18th century England (Murray 1913:60–61,466).[21] This rule continued to be published in Hoyle's Games Improved as late as 1866 (Sunnucks 1970:438).[22]
Not allowed. If White made a move that would stalemate Black, he had to retract it and make a different move (Eastern Asia until the early 20th century). Murray likewise wrote that in Hindustani chess and Parsi chess, two of the three principal forms of chess played in India as of 1913 (Murray 1913:78), a player was not allowed to play a move that would stalemate the opponent (Murray 1913:82,84). The same was true of Burmese chess, another chess variant, at the time Murray wrote (Murray 1913:113). Stalemate was not permitted in most of the Eastern Asiatic forms of the game (specifically in Burma, India, Japan, and Siam) until early in the 20th century (Davidson 1981:65).
The forfeiture of Black's turn to move (medieval France) (Murray 1913:464–66) (Davidson 1981:64–65), although other medieval French sources treat stalemate as a draw (Murray 1913:464–66).
A draw. This was the rule in 13th century Italy (Murray 1913:461–62) and also stated in the German Cracow Poem (1422), which noted however that some players treated stalemate as equivalent to checkmate (Murray 1913:463–64). This rule was ultimately adopted throughout Europe, but not in England until the 19th century, after being introduced there by Jacob Sarratt (Murray 1913:391) (Davidson 1981:64–66), (Sunnucks 1970:438).

[John Clarke]

As Michael Farthing's post indicates, a full statement of the question has to include whereabouts in the world you're referring to.

Parts of Italy still had different rules about castling up to the early 20th century, according to the Oxford Companion To Chess.

And if I'm not mistaken, the convention that White moves first was also pretty late in becoming universal, certainly after the 1830s. Though this, like the correct way of castling or promoting a pawn, is really procedure rather than an actual rule of the game.

[Tristan Clayton]

Wasn't there a rule introduced in the 60s or 70s to avoid 0-0-0-0 (castling with a promoted Rook on e8) being a legal - if highly implausible - move?

[MJMcCready]

It's probably that white must start the game, which came into effect in or around 1852 off the top of my head. I think Black moved first in Anderssen-Kieseritzky the immortal game but stand to be corrected.

[Matt Fletcher]

Wasn't there a rule introduced in the 60s or 70s to avoid 0-0-0-0 (castling with a promoted Rook on e8) being a legal - if highly implausible - move?

White to play and mate in 3 - Krabbé, 1972
8/8/4P3/3p4/2p3p1/1pP1kPPp/1P5P/R3K2R w KQ - 0 1

[Stewart Reuben]

The last significant changes came into force 1 July 2014.
9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn:
a. the same position has appeared as in 9.2b, for at least five consecutive alternate moves by each player.
b. 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.

These changes were added because of increments. Ganes cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. I have wondered whether we would have agreed on b, had we known there was an endgame K, Q, N against K, R, B, N where the former has a forced win, with best play by the opponent, in over 500 moves before there is a capture.

The change in 3.7e some years ago was the player must promote to a NEW queen, rook, bishop or knight. Prior to that, he could have used a piece already on the board. Why I suddenly thought of that. I don't know.

'The FIDE Laws of Chess cover over-the-board play' came in 1997. That has led to arguments this year.

Most other changes in the Laws are tidying up, or clarification. 9.6 is completely new, although very, very rare.

[Kevin O'Rourke]

Nigel short has said that he would like the rule changed so that if you have no legal move available you should lose. i.e. stalemate is now a loss.


Interesting in that it would change a lot of the endgames e.g. a loan rooks pawn in king and pawn ending.

[Roger de Coverly]

Interesting in that it would change a lot of the endgames

It changes openings as well. All those lines where one player, usually Black, sacrifices a pawn for some initiative ultimately rely on the point that many pawn down endings can be drawn because of the stalemate rule.

[Stewart Reuben]

Kevin O'Rourke
>Nigel Short has said that he would like the rule changed so that if you have no legal move available you should lose. i.e. stalemate is now a loss.<

That is unlikely to happen. The Rules Commission is against major changes in the Laws which would damage historical knowledge. All K +P v K endgames become wins.
That is why this thread is delving into the past.

The other reason is that white's advantage would probably become 60-40 instead of 54-46. That is an assertion, I have no proof. The validity could be tested by programming chess computers where stalemate wins for the stalemater and having them play perhaps 10,000 games.
That can be partially solved by having every chess encounter be of two games, one with white and one black. Had they started out with that in the 19th century, I expect that would be how we played chess.
Double round tournaments is the only logical way. But they are very rare. Korchnoi said to me at one Foreign & Colonial Hastings Premier, 'You've organised a tournament that is every chessplayer's dream'. It was an 8 player double round.

I have wondered whether the people who decided on the stalemate rule realised the imbalance and chose it to reduce the white advantage.

I am considering a project on 'The History of the Laws of Chess'. I have been in discussion with McFarland on thw subject. From 1994 it would be easy to do. But from 6th Century AD?

[Roger de Coverly]

The validity could be tested by programming chess computers where stalemate wins for the stalemater and having them play perhaps 10,000 games.

That would be one way of doing it. Another would be to extract and count the endings which were drawn despite one player having an extra pawn. You would exclude endings with opposite colour Bishops, but would add back those with Bishop and wrong colour Rook pawn.