Bug turns a win into a draw

My opponent flagged here but I drew?? This should be a win by the rules of chess? pls fix this bug

"Article 6.9: ..if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. "

you cannot checkmate with a knight so thats why this is a draw. even if u proceed to win all Pieces of black this will still Count as a draw as you have insufficient material to checkmate black.

But I can.

lol idk then

This is a known thing here. When the time is up, system only checks if the side that still has time left has enough material. Enough material is either at least a pawn, or rook and higher.

If you only have a single minor piece, it declares a draw when the other side is out of time. I presume it is really difficult to program it in another way, because in many other cases when you have a minor piece it would be impossible to checkmate.

There is an even worse issue as a result. Imagine that in the near end position it is impossible to avoid mate for one side, and the other only has a knight. The losing side can actually stall and wait for his time to run out on purpose and it would be a draw. Basically in a position on move 72. for black of your example, black never plays Ng2 (or any other move) but waits for his time to run out. It would be a draw.

What? The other better site[lichess] recogonizes that position correctly as a win should white flag. I again presume that it's a bug here. The issue you highlighted is correct and hence why this bug should be fixed as soon as possible.

It is not a bug here in a sense that this happens to everyone, this is how they did it. I've seen examples like yours in the past on the forum.

Even worse, I've seen people stall one move from mate to gain a draw because of this. I was surprised as well.

This is how they do it? By not following the rules of chess? Simply absurd if you think about it.

I hope some mod or better yet staff would explain it in a more official capacity, why is it exactly like this.

There are some rules that slightly differ between FIDE and USCF regarding this topic, but I am not sure how they differ exactly, it was a long time ago when I saw it.

If I remember it correctly, site follows USCF regarding rules, but I think this particular one is different from both.

So you mean to tell me, if two players are playing this in a USCF classical game, and white executes a brilliant combination to get into this position, which he calculated to be a win, and black sees this line, then he cans simply stall his clock to draw a lost position? This is absolutely unethical.

The original poster failed to read the whole of that article.

""If a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player's king by any possible series of legal moves, even with the most unskilled counterplay."

It's not a bug and it's not unethical. The rule is that if your opponent runs out of time, you get the best possible result that you could possibly get, if you were to play on (best possible assuming your opponent made the worst possible blunders at every move). If you have enough material on the board that it is theoretically possible for you to win, then you win. If you have so little material on the board that no matter what moves were made, it is utterly impossible for you to reach a checkmate, then it's a draw.

That is why I said this particular case is different on this site. The problem is that I don't remember how it is different exactly. I think that in FIDE tournaments, if there are any kind of legal moves that will lead to a win, it is a win (if the times is up). So in FIDE games that first diagram you showed is a proof that it can be won and it would be.

I don't remember how USCF is different (it is different in some way though), but I think the second diagram would be a win in both because it is a forced win (that might actually be it, that in USCF it has to be a forced win to be declared a win).

And here ity is not even that but what I said previously.

Reread that article again. It clearly states why it should be a win.

But what if there is not a forced win, but a practically impossible to hold position that is a tablebase draw? Would they make it a draw, and reward the player who ran out of time and incompotent enough to see the tablebase draw, or make it a win, making someone win an objectively drawb position?

Basically, I think that your game would be a win in FIDE tournaments because the win is possible, while in USCF it might be a draw because it is not forced.

The other example, I think it would be a win in both FIDE and USCF, but sadly not here.
But you need to wait for someone from USA to confirm.

As for what you describe now, I am not sure. After all, in world blitz championship FIDE made a rule change on the spot.

I guess that in such cases the arbiter would decide what happens.

I had the opposite happen, I won a drawn game.

The FIDE rules are infinitely better for this. It is clear when the game is drawn and when it is win. The only case where you draw when your opponent is flagged is when your opponent has only a king.

In a case where a player1 with an objectively draw position but practically impossible to defend, decides to stall, but his opponent, player2 does not have sufficient checkmating materials, then the result should morally depend on if the player1 saw the draw or not. However it is not possible to do that. Since there is no forced win, USCF declares it a draw, rewarding the player1 for not calculating and seeing the draw, and simply deciding to stall the clock to see if it is a draw or not. Even the arbiter cannot be an objective judge if good players are playing, and they are capable of seeing the lines. It might be the case that player1 was calculating the lines and his time ran out, or that player1 simply acted to calculate and he didn't.

ps: Now that I think about it, I am 99.9% sure that the described positon does not exist. But there is a 0.1% chance that such a postion maybe exists in the tablebase.

FIDE is very clear that player 1 should be PUNISHED for this by forfeiting the game on account of the clock.

The site does not use the FIDE implementation of mate possible by any series of legal moves

It's not a bug but an implementation decision to more closely align with the US Chess rules in such situations.

It's possible that could change in the future but I don't know how likely it is.