💡📝Michael Nelson wrote on Sat, Aug 2, 2003 03:15 PM UTC:
I had never been happy with the 150-move limit, but I just wasn't able to
write an an adequate 50-move rule in time for the contest deadline. In
fact, I have several me vs Z and Z vs Z games in my library that were in
doubt on move 150 but won by move 170, where a draw would have been
declared even though progress was being made.
By the way, games of this length are extraordinary--the most recent
involved me making a very long comeback from being within a hairbreath of
lost at move 75. On the other hand, I have seen games that were pretty
dea by move 100 or so that the new rule will stop before move 150.
The new 50-move rule is complex, but is an accurate adaptation of the FIDE
50-move rule to the radically different conditions of Wizard's War. In
actaul play, the irreplacablity of a piece will be more obvious than it
seems from reading the rule.