Fifty-move rule

The fifty-move rule in chess states that a player can claim a draw if no capture has been made and no pawn has been moved in the last fifty moves (for this purpose a "move" consists of a player completing a turn followed by the opponent completing a turn). The purpose of this rule is to prevent a player with no chance of winning from obstinately continuing to play indefinitely^[1] or seeking to win by tiring the opponent.

Chess positions with only a few pieces can be "solved", that is, the outcome of best play for both sides can be determined by exhaustive analysis; if the outcome is a win for one side or the other (rather than a draw), it is of interest to know whether the defending side can hold out long enough to invoke the fifty-move rule. The simplest common endings, called the basic checkmates, such as king and queen versus king, can all be won in well under 50 moves.^[2] However, in the 20th century it was discovered that certain endgame positions are winnable but require more than 50 moves (without a capture or a pawn move). The rule was therefore changed to allow certain exceptions in which 100 moves were allowed with particular material combinations. However, winnable positions that required even more moves were later discovered, and in 1992, FIDE abolished all such exceptions and reinstated the strict 50-move rule over the board. In correspondence chess, a rule similar to these endgame exceptions still applies, in that a player can claim a win or draw based on seven-piece endgame tablebases (which do not consider the 50-move rule).