Gary-An example of poofing one's own pieces.
In Ultima you are allowed to suicide a piece if your opponent has him immobilized. An efective plan at times when trying to attack the Immobilizer or open up a line to pass the Immobilizer. It counts as your turn, but not as a move as a stalemate in Ultima is a win for the player that moves last. It was my search to play this game that led to me finding IYT in the first place! They still don't have it, nor does any one else except the chess variant's robot. Now I can actually point to it as an example in a posting. It appears it'll be last posting, since I completed my last game on this site yesterday.

I see nothing wrong with draws. The frequency of them or how they were earned is something I can have problems with. They way that Pente is played, a draw can't happen in play. So why are the players allowed to agree to a draw? A result that can't happen in the play, should not be allowed to happen. The Poof version has a draw possiblity. Apparently it has never happened in the play of the game and is just an example in a composed problem. Why suddenly outlaw it for a game that isn't even played except by waterdancer? He made it up, let him play it his way. Just having the possibilty of a draw might induce the player who thinks he has the winning position to force a different result, whereas the his opponent has something to play for beside an outright loss.

What does communism have to do with draws? I am against the enforced equality of socialism, but if two or more sides duke it out and it ends up tied that's the way it should be. This whole culture of insisting on having a winner cheapens a lot of sporting contests. Especially in the manner that they break the ties. Soccer is the best example of this. Looks like college football has fallen into the trap too. Games that used to end in a tie are now played with some other version of football after regulation time to determine a winner.

Thad, why not go there? Gary even invited you to. Kind of like how you bowed out about the aluminum bats, eh? Your idea of allowing the player to move second to have a win in a draw position sounds like a way to help with his disadvantage of going second.

It'd be an easy thing to curtail the number of draws in chess. Just make a stalemate a win for the player to move last. The only way to have draws (aside from agreement) would be perpetual check and repetitive position. Neither of which happen much. The stalemate or threat of it happens in a lot of games. This minor change in the rules would greatly affect the play of game though. Seems like this was debated 30 or 40 years ago, and was rejected by the chess powers. Chess has stayed the same for a long time. They complained about the number of draws increasing then and haven't as yet come up with an way to change it. They have held matches where draws don't count and the game is replayed. But that's not a practical solution in a round robin or Swiss formatted tournament.

Hmmm, you got me thinking. Why not devise a version of Pente that will make draws possible and about as likely as they are in Reversi? That should level the playing field, or will it? I like the heading on some of the earlier posts in this section "Thoughts for rules changes to improve pente. Making pente with no opening move restriction a fair game.Pente for points (not exactly like the original variant)". I've got to hand it to you guys that you really are trying to come up with something that'll work.

Dmitri- A draw is possible in Checkers. If both players have one King each and one of them is in a double corner, he cannot be forced out of there and it'll be a draw.

Time for work.