The fifty-move rule
Fifty moves each with no capture and no pawn move: a draw can be claimed. At seventy-five it is automatic.
The idea
Fifty moves each with no capture or pawn move: a draw can be claimed.
- White has a rook and a bishop, but no pawns to push.
- Black’s rook defends, and nothing has been taken for fifty moves.
- So the player to move can claim the draw.
In a game: In a long ending, count the moves since the last capture or pawn move.
How the lesson begins
The fifty-move rule counts the moves since the last capture or pawn move. When each player has made fifty moves with neither, a player can claim a draw.
In this rook and bishop against rook ending, fifty moves each have gone by with no capture and no pawn move, and White has not made progress. The player to move can claim the draw, and Black can claim it on Black’s next turn.
A question
Which of these moves starts the count again from nothing?
Show the answer
A pawn move or a capture.
Right. A pawn can never go back, and a capture takes material off the board for good. Either one changes the game, so the count starts again.