Originally posted by Golub
I'm sorry but.. it's kind of funny how someone can play a game without making sure he knows what the goal is. And yeah, I do .NET programming.
Now let's be honest, how many of us knew all rules of chess before we began playing what we thought was chess?
Imagine this conversation:
Johnny (age 8) - Hey Mike, do you want to play a game of chess?
Mike (age 8) - I'd better not. I know the basic rules, but I need to make sure I read the FIDE rule book in its entirity before a venture into an actual competition.
How many of us knew these rules before our first competition?
o How to castle.
o Restrictions on Castling through check or from check.
o En Passant
o Stalemate
o actual 50 move rule (I was originally told that 50 moves began counting when one side gets down to just their king. I never knew better until I did read the rule book in college)
o actual 3 repetition rule (as opposed to some common mis-interpretations)
o correct setup of the board (i.e. queen on own color, white square on lower right corner for both players).
I began reading chess books before I knew what en-passant was. And once in 6th grade, I statemated another beginner and declared myself the winner. He didn't know any better, so the game was over and both of us content. Fortunately there was no one there to tell me how stupid I was to play a game for which I didn't know all the rules.
Of course back when I was learning chess, we'd never heard of the Internet, nor even dreamed of a "chess server". RHP forces some rules upon people who might not have known better, and naturally these people want to ask someone with more experience. But it never fails, anytime someone asks a rules question on these forums, someone pipes in and insults them. Like any of us knew all rules before we began. And if we didn't know that we didn't know, we stumbled upon it in a game and had someone explain at that time. This is exactly what the person who started the thread did.
And those answering the question, didn't seem to mind.
The first time I stalemated someone, it had not even occurred to me beforehand that such a thing was possible. I'm sure someone will make sure I know they think I'm stupid for this, but I would contend that not many beginners are going to think to ask about such a scenerio until it happens to them, or they've played a while.
Okay, all you guys that read the FIDE rule book at age 3 before you ventured to touch a chess piece, begin your flaming.