Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I think your second option is what I mean. But I'm not too sure, so let me clarify.

1st. standard checkmate would be a win, since the king is in danger so the player must aleviate the check (by king's rules), but since he can't he has no legal moves, thereby loses (by rule 1).

2nd. in addition to standard checkmate, stalemate would be loss as well, since by rule 1 the person with no legal move loses. A example would be if white king at A1, and black rook at B2, with white having no other pieces, and black having pieces elsewhere. If it is white to move, then white is lost, since his only piece the king can't move without placing itself in danger which is forbidden.

So checkmate in Nach Schach is a form of stalemate, and is still a valid way to win, however stalemate is sufficient, so sometimes there can be simpler way to win without explicit checkmate.

By the way it would be intersting to work out lone king win against lone king, hint it is a win by stalemate.

Finally I have a subvariant which I'll post later that adds a random setup on a slightly larger board, which I consider better than Nach Schach itself.

Rich,

 I have a certain aversion to castling as I find the castling rules fiddly, but your point is well taken. For Nacht Schach, castling does make some sense. So it can be used as an optional rule. 

In other games of this yet unposted series of variants, the topology and rules is such that castling will be unnecessary. (i.e. there's room to move rook back.)

Jianying Ji,

I also find castling fiddly, but also see if you don't have it, protecting the king and mobilizing the rook is shorted.

I do believe the 8x7 board (Simplified Chess Board) does provide solid merit though, considering that Henry VIII Chess also uses it.  I also have Simpleton's Chess, which is like Henry VIII but simplier also uses it.

The editor H. G. Muller has revised this page.

These rules achieve the goals set by this game's inventor, including a forced win for one side in every endgame - even KvsK, as Jianying Ji commented on Wed, May 28, 2008. I believe that Adrian King's Scirocco(1997/2001/2009) was the first attempt at eliminating draws on this website.

I offer an amusing example of a type of stalemate that George P. Jelliss calls a deadlock. Pasting 1. d3 g5 2. Bxg5 hxg5 3. Kd2 Rh4 4. h3 Rc4 5. Ke3 Rxc2 6. Kf3 Rxb2 7. Kg3 Rxa2 8. Na3 Rxa1 9. Kh2 g4 10. Nf3 g3 11. Kg1 f5 12. Rh2 f4 13. Kh1 Nf5 14. Ng1 Nh4 15. f3 Rxa3 16. Qc1 Rxd3 17. Qe3 Rxe3 into the Interactive Diagram and pressing "Move" results in *** I resign! *** because White has no legal moves.

The Interactive Diagram allows specification of the stalemate result, but doesn't test for repetition. So it cannot implement a repetition ban.

As the article already states, the proposed rules don't guarantee a decision in unwinnable positions in an acceptable time; it could take millions of moves to force a repetition if there are several pieces on board (e.g. KR-KR). So something like a 50-move rule for winning would also be needed. E.g. that the player who made the last capture wins.

The rules to decide unwinnable games (e.g. by running out of non-repeating moves) are often totally incalculable, so that they are not much better than a lottery.