White resigned in a stalemate position?

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HumbleProgrammer
Posts: 40
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2010 11:00 pm
Real Name: Lee Neuse

White resigned in a stalemate position?

Post by HumbleProgrammer »

My home-rolled PGN parser is starting to really take shape, but I've run into an interesting dilemma. I use weekly downloads from "The Week In Chess" (http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/twic.html) as test data, and I've found several examples where the result at the end of the game doesn't match the recorded result. For example, in the game below (from twic804.pgn) the result is clearly remarked as "0-1", but the position is actually a stalemate! So...did neither player notice the stalemate, or is the PGN result bogus?



Assuming that you were sitting in front of my (soon to be awesome) software, would you want notification of this type of situation?

Cheers!
Humble Programmer
,,,^..^,,,
hyatt
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Re: White resigned in a stalemate position?

Post by hyatt »

One can be stalemated and the game can still be won or lost if someone's flag falls.
LucenaTheLucid
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Re: White resigned in a stalemate position?

Post by LucenaTheLucid »

How can one be stalemated and still run out of time? I mean either you run out of time and game over, or you get stalemated and that's 1/2-1/2 end of game correct? How is this possible?
hyatt
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Re: White resigned in a stalemate position?

Post by hyatt »

LucenaTheLucid wrote:How can one be stalemated and still run out of time? I mean either you run out of time and game over, or you get stalemated and that's 1/2-1/2 end of game correct? How is this possible?
You have to show you won or drew _before_ your flag fell. I suppose one could see that king move, sit for a couple of seconds, flag falls, opponent claims win, you realize you are stalemated. But so far as I know, when your flag falls you lose. Even if you mate your opponent, you have to press the clock and leave the flag hanging and not fallen.

That's about all I could think of unless white was a beginner and somehow thought he was losing...

This would be contrary to FIDE rules, since stalemate ends the game instantly. The other explanation would be that the flag fell before black made his last move, as he was making the move he noticed this and called the flag, yet the move was still recorded, as in some of the events that use the DGT boards to capture the moves.
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