H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Oct 31, 2017 10:35 AM UTC:
The rules are not unambiguously specified, w.r.t. checking. In FIDE rules it is not legal to expose your King to capture. But in Refusal Chess, do you expose your King to capture when you move to a square that is singly attacked by the opponent? I would say "no", because you can always refuse the move that captures it, and so there is no danger to your King. An alternative is that you lose the right to refuse after your King is captured. Then Refusal and orthodox Chess have the same legal moves.
Under these rules even KRK would seem a draw, as there always is only one way in that end-game. (The Rook has to check along the orthogonal that contains both squares ot covered by the attacking King, and a Rook can always reach a given orthogonal in only oe way.) This makes the game very drawish. I therefore think it was a mistake to adopt the rule that you cannot refuse the opponent's only legal move; it would have been better to make that a checkmate or stalemate, depending on whether he is in check. That makes checkmating easier, rather than more difficult. It still does not seem too easy, as you still have the option to refuse a move that would put you in a position where you only have a single legal move. That is, you never really have only a single option, as you always have the choice to make that move or refuse the opponent's previous move. Another ambiguity is what happens when you have no legal move at all. Are you forced to refuse then, or does it count as stalemate?
The rules are not unambiguously specified, w.r.t. checking. In FIDE rules it is not legal to expose your King to capture. But in Refusal Chess, do you expose your King to capture when you move to a square that is singly attacked by the opponent? I would say "no", because you can always refuse the move that captures it, and so there is no danger to your King. An alternative is that you lose the right to refuse after your King is captured. Then Refusal and orthodox Chess have the same legal moves.
Under these rules even KRK would seem a draw, as there always is only one way in that end-game. (The Rook has to check along the orthogonal that contains both squares ot covered by the attacking King, and a Rook can always reach a given orthogonal in only oe way.) This makes the game very drawish. I therefore think it was a mistake to adopt the rule that you cannot refuse the opponent's only legal move; it would have been better to make that a checkmate or stalemate, depending on whether he is in check. That makes checkmating easier, rather than more difficult. It still does not seem too easy, as you still have the option to refuse a move that would put you in a position where you only have a single legal move. That is, you never really have only a single option, as you always have the choice to make that move or refuse the opponent's previous move. Another ambiguity is what happens when you have no legal move at all. Are you forced to refuse then, or does it count as stalemate?