[Retros] Illegal moves by grandmasters

[tregeryefim at aol.com]

About the "right belief" or about a difference between the retro and math views.

   The position created by Noam Elkies (or in fact, almost any position after 50 special moves) declares the  drawn one. This is a good example of a concrete problem (in a retro or composition) but concerning math - I doubt it.
Math may say: this position is not winning positions on a segment of 50 moves, but it is still WINNING position (for instance, on a segment of 200 moves). 
    The point is: when we talk about a win position we assume any number of moves. A very simple example: King with Queen versus King on their initial squares: this is a win position (but more than 3 moves are needed, so somebody can think that this is a draw referring to a artificial rules of a specific number of moves - by the way, why 50, not 100 or 1 million moves?!) 
      What math should suggest is: a win position is a position from which one player may checkmate an opponent despite any his play and any number of moves (expression despite "any his play" may easily be express by the terms of a game theory or even logically). If somebody wants to specify that number that is another story, and this is only a particular case of general math laws.
In my opinion, Mathematicians should give a recommendation to FIDE about abolishing of 50 moves rules (after awarding Noam Elkies for his unique position - just kidding!..)

Yefim Treger
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/retros/attachments/20110512/3fa613e1/attachment.htm>