The only thing I would change is to make it easier for Russian female players to get US visas.

My wife says it doesn't matter, because I still wouldn't have any game.

Agree with SG on this.

Don't tamper with things, the game is in a perfect balance.

Add one new rule or remove one current rule and the game becomes
unbalanced, odd, not right. It would create a domino effect that would
ripple through every aspect and phase of the game and destroy it's beauty.

Although the Spanish lads at the Royal court re-invented the game
we play today by improving the power of the Bishop and the Queen.

I sometimes think some kind of of unseen power had in it's influence in
this matter. It's the perfect game full of enigmas and chamring possibilities.
It's far to perfect to come from the mind of mere humans.

This is a draw. White to play



Add just one pawn.



Now it's a win.

One thing I'd like to see, not a rule change how the game is played,
that is sacred.

But a rule stating a player cannot resign.
The game must be played out to a Mate. Which after all is the object of the game.

If you want to resign then create a sui-mate like I did in Game 7573011
(see below, I'm White, a piece down so I constrcuted a self-mate).

It's never going to happen but often think a tournament with such a
rule would toss up some imaginative and amusing mates.

Actually a rule I would add would be:

"A draw may not be negiotated in the first 15(*) moves."

(*) the actual number is open for discussion. And yes I know that people wnating a draw can still play any number of moves into a dead drawn position, but still I think the question of short draws could be cleared up.

From Winters Chess Notes.

"‘Mr Blackburne held one peculiar view on chess.

I showed him a problem in which en passant occurred.
He at once said he thought that when an International Chess Federation is formed,

(FIDE was then still a pipe-dream - GP).

One of their first acts will be to abolish PxP en passant from the game of chess,
and I think he meant it, for in later years he adhered to that view.’

John Keeble: page 402 of the October 1924 BCM.

I like the en passant rule.

A pawn can move two squares on it's first move - just like a King. (castling).
When it reaches the 8th rank it can become a QUeen.

The en passant rule puts the pawn firmly in it's place.
It may think it's clever by moving two squares on it's first move
and be King for a move, but it can still be captured.

Also upon the reaching the 8th rank you can promote it to a hated Knight.
How galling must that be.

Pawns hate Knights because when the Knights jump over them they
shout rude things at them and try to clip their bald heads.

(examine your pawns, you will find small dents in the head of each one)

Unlike the polite Bishop who glides between them often complementing on their structure.

I am not against a draw when the position is such that a capture would bring the loss of one of the two players. So we might keep the 50 moves rule.

Rephrasing:

A draw can only occur with two bare Kings, or the application of the 50move rule. Stalemates keep to be a draw by force.

I can see what you are saying, and I mostly agree. The rule I proposed would only apply in the situation I initally explained, whereby the checkmating piece is only protected by a piece that would allow the king to be captured if moved.