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by anderskaseorg 1734 days ago
The rules of chess are defined by the FIDE Handbook (https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012018), not the PGN standard. Although the FIDE Handbook makes no explicit provision for the death of the player, it does say:

“6.9. Except where one of Articles 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that 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.”

Therefore, a draw due to player death is also possible.

1 comments

Makes perfect sense. You can't win king vs king+pawn ever. As such even if opponent died in such situation you don't get win.
> You can't win king vs king+pawn ever

Pawns can get promoted, so there are are many king vs king + pawn positions that are a win for the player having the pawn.

Point was that you having only king can't win against person with king+pawn ever. Even if such player was dead and thus played to lose.
You cannot win doesn't mean you loose .

You can always attempt to get stalemated which is a draw, or get a draw my threefold repetion , or in theory the 50 move draw rule as well( if say 47/48 of those already had happened etc).

I this case we were talking about situation where other player is literally dead. So I imagine draw would be granted, on part of other party not making any moves...
The importance of anticipating and gaining the 'opposition'.
King+pawn vs king can only be won if the other guy makes a mistake. However, the other guy can make a mistake. The draw situations are king+knight vs king or king+bishop vs king.
The K+P vs. K scenario being discussed is not the one where the K player dies (loss, because K+P could have won). It’s the one where the K+P player dies (draw, because K could not have won).

K+N vs. K or K+B vs. K are already an automatic draw regardless of the players’ ability to make future moves, so death would not be a relevant factor there.