Can Black draw the game despite White having mate in 3?
After White loses their bishop, can Black let their clock run down and draw the game due to White having insufficient material?
5 Replies
No.
https://new.uschess.org/sites/default/fi...
14E. Insufficient material to win on time.
The game is drawn even when a player exceeds the time limit if one of the following conditions exists as of the most
recently determined legal move. See also 15H, Reporting of results:
TD TIP: Remember a 14E draw claim is first a draw offer (Rule 14, The Drawn Game).
14E1. Lone king.
Opponent has only a lone king.
14E2. King and bishop or king and knight.
Opponent has only king and bishop or king and knight, and does not have a forced win.
14E3. King and two knights.
Opponent has only king and two knights, the player has no pawns, and opponent does not have a forced win.
https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsO...
9.6 The game is drawn when a position is reached from which a checkmate cannot occur by
any possible series of legal moves. This immediately ends the game, provided that the
move producing this position was legal.
Chess.com uses the USCF rule but does not check for forced mate and so I believe would call it a draw.
Yeah these rules are hard to implement with simple condition statements in online play. Maybe they need to pass the position to an engine in the USCF rules case whenever the first part of 14E2 or 14E3 is met. For FIDE they would need to use some kind of engine designed to solve helpmates.
It's not "Insufficient material" with the Black pawns on the board.
