Threefold repetition

In chess, the threefold repetition rule (also known as repetition of position) states that a player can claim a draw if the same position occurs three times, or will occur after their next move, with the same player to move. The repeated positions do not need to occur in succession. The reasoning behind the rule is that if the position occurs three times, no real progress is being made and the game could hypothetically continue indefinitely.

In chess, in order for a position to be considered the same, each player must have the same set of legal moves each time, including the possible rights to castle and capture en passant. Positions are considered the same if the same type of piece is on a given square. For example, if a player has two knights and the knights are on the same squares, it does not matter if the positions of the two knights have been exchanged. The game is not automatically drawn if a position occurs for the third time – one of the players, on their turn, must claim the draw with the arbiter.

Similar rules exist in other abstract strategy games such as xiangqi and shogi (cf. sennichite).


Statement of the rule

The relevant rules in the FIDE laws of chess are summarized as:[2]

The game is a draw if a position occurs (at least) three times during the game. (Intervening moves do not matter.) It must be claimed by the player with the turn to move. The claim is made:
a. If the position is about to appear for the third time, the player making the claim first writes their move on their scoresheet and notifies the arbiter that they intend to make this move.
Or
b. If the position has just appeared for the third time, the player with the move can claim the draw.
Positions are considered the same if (1) the same player has the move, (2) pieces of the same kind and color occupy the same squares, and (3) the possible moves of all the pieces are the same.
Under (3) above, positions are not considered to be the same if: (a) the en passant rule for capturing a pawn was in effect (since it is no longer in effect), or (b) either player has lost the right to castle, i.e. either king or the rook has been moved in between repetitions of the position.

Although a threefold repetition usually occurs after consecutive moves, there is no requirement that the moves be consecutive for a claim to be valid. The intermediate positions and moves do not matter – they can be the same or different. The rule applies to positions, not moves.

It is popularly thought that perpetual check is a draw, but in fact no such rule exists. Perpetual check is in fact a tactic to force a draw by repetition (or occasionally by the fifty move rule).

If the claim for a draw is incorrect, the opponent is awarded an extra two minutes and the game continues.[3] Unreasonable claims may be penalized under rule 11.5, which forbids distracting or annoying the opponent.[4] Even if the claim is incorrect, any draw claim is also a draw offer that the opponent may accept.[5]

Fivefold repetition

From 1 July 2014,[8] the fivefold repetition rule was introduced. This is related to the threefold repetition rule in that it looks at in the same specific sense how many times a position occurs. The fivefold repetition rule states that after five occurrences of the same position the game immediately ends in a draw regardless of whether or not a player has made a claim.[9][10] If the arbiter observes a fivefold repetition, they are required to step in and enforce the draw.[11]

Examples

The seventeenth,[12] eighteenth,[13] and twentieth games of the 1972 World Championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky were declared draws because of threefold repetition, although the twentieth game was an incorrect claim (see incorrect claims below).

Fischer versus Petrosian, 1971
Fischer vs. Petrosian, 1971
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Position after 30.Qe2, after 32.Qe2, and after 34.Qe2

In the third game[14] of the 1971 Candidates Final Match between Bobby Fischer and Tigran Petrosian, Petrosian (with a better position) accidentally allowed the position after 30.Qe2 to be repeated three times (see diagram). Play continued:

30... Qe5
31. Qh5 Qf6
32. Qe2 (second time) Re5
33. Qd3 Rd5?

and then Fischer wrote his next move

34. Qe2 (third time)

on his scoresheet, which is the third appearance of the position with Black to move, and he claimed a draw.[15] At first Petrosian was not aware of what was going on. Incidentally, this was the first time a draw by threefold repetition had been claimed in his career (Plisetsky & Voronkov 2005:283–84), (Kasparov 2004:422–23), (Byrne 1971:682). This also illustrates that the intermediate moves do not need to be the same – just the positions.

Capablanca versus Lasker, 1921
Capablanca vs. Lasker, 1921
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The position after 34...h5 and again after 36...Kf8 and 38...Kf8. A draw was not claimed.

As noted above, one of the players must claim a draw by threefold repetition for the rule to be applied, otherwise the game continues. In the fifth game[16] of the 1921 World Chess Championship match between José Raúl Capablanca and Emanuel Lasker, the same position occurred three times, but no draw was claimed. From the position in the diagram, after 34...h5, the moves were:

35. Qd8+ Kg7
36. Qg5+ Kf8 (second time)
37. Qd8+ Kg7
38. Qg5+ Kf8 (third time)

The game continued; Lasker blundered and resigned on move 46. Capablanca repeated the position to gain time on the clock (i.e. get in some quick moves before time control) (Kasparov 2003:266–67). (Capablanca went on to win the match and became world champion.)

Alekhine versus Lasker, 1914
Alekhine vs. Lasker
Moscow 1914
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Position after 16.Qg6
Lasker vs. Alekhine
St. Petersburg 1914
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Position after 22...Qf3+ and 24...Qf3+, draw

The first game[17] between world champion Emanuel Lasker and future (1927) world champion Alexander Alekhine ended in a short draw, due to a forced repetition of position: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.Bd3 d5 8.exd5 cxd5 9.0-0 0-0 10.Bg5 Be6 11.Qf3 Be7 12.Rfe1 h6 13.Bxh6 gxh6 14.Rxe6 fxe6 15.Qg3+ Kh8 16.Qg6 and the players agreed to a draw because Black cannot avoid the repetition of position: 16...Qe8 17.Qxh6+ Kg8 18.Qg5+ Kh8 19.Qh6+ (Hooper & Whyld 1992) (under repetition of position).

These two players had another game[18] in 1914 in which Alekhine (this time with the black pieces) again achieved a draw by a similar process (Bott & Morrison 1966:14).

Korchnoi versus Portisch, 1970
Korchnoi vs. Portisch, 1970
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Position after 64.Kh5

A famous draw by threefold repetition occurred in a game[19] between Viktor Korchnoi and Lajos Portisch in 1970 in the Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World match. Portisch allowed a threefold repetition in a winning position and was criticized by teammate Bobby Fischer for allowing it (Brady 1973:163). If Portisch had won the game, the match would have been a tie. Play continued:

64... Rh6+
65. Kg4 Rd6
66. Kh5 Kf6
67. Rb2 Kg7
68. Rb8 ½–½

Kasparov versus Deep Blue, 1997
Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, 1997
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Position after 49...Kb4

In the game[20] Garry Kasparov–Deep Blue, 1997 the players agreed to a draw, because if White played 50.g8=Q, Black could get a draw by threefold repetition: 50...Rd1+, 51.K-any, Rd2+ 52.Kb1 Rd1+, etc. (Hsu 2002:251–52).

In the opening

Some chess opening lines have been analyzed out to a draw by threefold repetition.

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Pirc Defense line, after 9.Ng5

One example is this position from a line of the Pirc Defence. Black can get a draw after the moves 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 c5 6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.e5 Ng4 8.e6 fxe6 9.Ng5 (diagram) Bxb5! 10.Nxe6 Bxd4! 11.Nxd8 Bf2+ 12.Kd2 Be3+ 13.Ke1 Bf2+ and White cannot escape the checks.

Repeating a position to gain time

Players sometimes repeat a position once not in order to draw, but to gain time on the clock (when an increment is being used) or to bring themselves closer to the time control (at which point they will receive more time). Occasionally, players miscount and inadvertently repeat the position more than once, thus allowing their opponent to claim a draw in an unfavourable position. The game[21] Ponomariov–Adams, Wijk aan Zee 2005 may have been an example of this (Friedel 2005).

Incorrect claims

Even top players have made incorrect claims of a draw under this rule. The Karpov–Miles game is an example of the right to castle having to be the same in all positions. The Fischer–Spassky game is an example that it must be the same player's move in all three positions.

Karpov versus Miles
Karpov vs. Miles, Tilburg 1986
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Position after 22.Nb5, 24.Nb5, and 26.Nb5

The clause about the right to capture en passant and the right to castle is a subtle but important one. In a game[22] between grandmasters Anatoly Karpov and Tony Miles (Tilburg 1986), Karpov had less than five minutes remaining on his clock in which to finish a specified number of moves or forfeit the game. He claimed a draw by repetition after checking his scoresheet carefully, whereupon it was pointed out to him that in the first occurrence of position, Black's king had had the right to castle, whereas in the second and third it had not. Tournament rules stipulated that a player be penalized with three minutes of their time for incorrect claims, which left Karpov's flag on the verge of falling. By then, Miles had taken the draw. (Miles should have readily accepted a draw in that position, but Karpov was close to losing the game because of time control.) See the diagram for the position after 22. Nb5. The game continued 22... Ra4 23. Nc3 Ra8 24. Nb5 Ra4 25. Nc3 Ra8 26. Nb5. Black could castle queenside the first time the position in the diagram occurred, but not when the position was repeated.

Fischer versus Spassky
Fischer vs. Spassky, 1972
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Final position

In the twentieth game[23] of the 1972 World Chess Championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, Fischer called the arbiter Lothar Schmid to claim a draw because of threefold repetition. Spassky did not dispute it and signed the scoresheets before the arbiter ruled (Gligorić 1972:119). After the draw had been agreed, it was pointed out that the position had occurred after White's forty-eighth and fiftieth moves, and again after Black's fifty-fourth move (the final position). So the claim was actually invalid because it was not the same player's turn to move in all three instances, but the draw result stood (Alexander 1972:137–38).[24]

History of the rule
Pest vs. Paris
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Position after 19.Nc5. It recurred after White's 21st, 23rd, 25th, and 27th moves.

At various times in the history of chess, the rule has been variously formulated. In Tim Harding's MegaCorr database (a collection of correspondence chess games), the notes to a game between the cities of Pest and Paris played between 1842 and 1845 state that a sixfold repetition was necessary to claim a draw. The game went: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Bd6 7.0-0 0-0 8.c4 Be6 9.Qc2 f5 10.Qb3 dxc4 11.Qxb7 c6 12.Bxe4 fxe4 13.Ng5 Bf5 14.Nc3 Qd7 15.Qxd7 Nxd7 16.Ngxe4 Bc7 17.Re1 Rab8 18.Re2 Nb6 19.Nc5 Bd6 20.N5e4 Bc7 21.Nc5 Bd6 22.N5e4 Bc7 23.Nc5 Bd6 24.N5e4 Bc7 25.Nc5 Bd6 26.N5e4 Bc7 27.Nc5 and now instead of taking the sixfold repetition draw with 27...Bd6 28.N5e4 Bc7, Paris diverged with 27...Bd3 and went on to lose the game.

The first use of such a rule was in a tournament in London in 1883, but was stated vaguely: "... if a series of moves be repeated three times the opponent can claim a draw." The rules for the first official World Chess Championship 1886 match between Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort stated: "... if both players repeat the same series of moves six times in succession, then either player may claim a draw." In two of the games the same position was repeated three times. The rule was modified soon afterward to be based on positions instead of moves, and for three repetitions (McCrary 2004). Draws by this method used to be uncommon (Brace 1977:236).

The first edition of the FIDE rule from 1928 already defines the threefold repetition rule without considering castling and en passant capture rights.[28] To additionally consider castling and en passant capture rights was implicitly introduced in 1975[30] and explicitly worded in 1985.[32] Prior to that, a 1964 FIDE interpretation established the same (Harkness 1967:49).

The fivefold repetition rule was implemented in July 2014.

Pillsbury versus Burn
Pillsbury vs. Burn, 1898
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Position after 42...Qe3, 46...Kg7, and 50...Kg7

In this 1898 Vienna tournament game[33] between Harry Pillsbury and Amos Burn, the same position occurred three times, but no draw could be claimed under the rules at the time. The tournament was played under the rules of Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels (1843, with later editions), in which the three-fold rule was stated as the repetition of moves or a sequence of moves, not a position. In the diagramed position, the game continued 43.Qb2 Kh6 44.Qc2 Kh7 45.Qb2 Kg8 46.Qc2 Kg7 47.Qb2 Kh7 48.Qc2 Kh6 49.Qb2 Kh7 50.Qc2 Kg7 51.Qb2. Under modern rules, Black could claim a draw by informing the arbiter of their intention to play 50...Kg7, producing the same position as had occurred after 42...Qe3 and 46...Kg7. Alternatively, after 51.Qb2, Black could claim a draw immediately because White has repeated the position after 43.Qb2 and 47.Qb2. Burn went on to win the game (Giddins 2012:166–67).

Other games
Main articles: Sennichite and Xiangqi § Rules

In many abstract strategy games there are rules to cover repetition of position. In some games this results in a draw, in others it is forbidden to repeat a position.

Currently, shogi employs a fourfold repetition (千日手 sennichite) rule, which is required to end in a draw. Each player must have the same pieces in hand as well as the same position on the board. The result is a draw. However, a fourfold repetition with perpetual checks is illegal, and results not in a draw but in a loss by the checking player.

In Xiangqi, rules about repetitions vary between different sets of rules, but generally perpetual attacks (長打), including perpetual check, perpetual threatmate, and perpetual chase, are forbidden.

Arimaa does not allow threefold repetition of the same position with the same player to move.

In Go, a player may not make a move which repeats a previous position, as would occur if a player were to immediately recapture a stone in a ko situation. Creating ko threats is an important strategic consideration in Go.

See also

Notes
  1. "FIDE Laws of Chess taking effect from 1 January 2018". FIDE. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  2. Rules 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 in FIDE Laws of Chess[1]
  3. Rule 9.5.3 in FIDE Laws of Chess[1]
  4. Rule 11.5 and 12.6 in FIDE Laws of Chess[1]
  5. Rule 9.1.2.3 in FIDE Laws of Chess[1]
  6. "Laws of Chess: For competitions starting from 1 July 2014 till 30 June 2017". FIDE. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  7. "Laws of Chess: For competitions starting from 1 July 2017 till 31 December 2017". FIDE. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  8. Formulated under "9.6 If one or both of the following occur(s) then the game is drawn" in the FIDE Laws of Chess. Under Rule 9.6.a in FIDE Laws of Chess 1 July 2014[6], as "9.6.a the same position has appeared, as in 9.2b, for at least five consecutive alternate moves by each player." Under 9.6.1 in FIDE Laws of Chess 1 July 2017 till 31 December 2017[7] and FIDE Laws of Chess 1 January 2018[1] as "9.6.1 the same position has appeared, as in 9.2.2 at least five times."
  9. Rule 6.2.1.1 in FIDE Laws of Chess[1]
  10. Rule 9.6.1 in FIDE Laws of Chess[1]
  11. "ARBITERS'S MANUAL 2020" (PDF). FIDE Arbiter's Commission. p. 32. Retrieved 9 July 2020. In both 9.6.1 and 9.6.2 cases the Arbiter must intervene and stop the game, declaring it as a draw.
  12. "Spassky vs. Fischer, 17th game, 1972". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  13. "Fischer vs. Spassky, 18th game, 1972". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  14. "Fischer vs. Petrosian, 1971". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  15. Different sources give different moves near the end. Plisetsky & Voronkov and Kasparov give 32...Re5 33.Qh5 Rd5. ChessBase gives 32...Qe5 33.Qh5 Qf6. ChessGames.com and Chess Life (11/1971 and 12/1971) give 32...Re5 33.Qd3 Rd5. The December 1971 Chess Life also discusses how the intermediate moves were different, and that Petrosian seemed unaware that he was going to allow a three-fold repetition.
  16. "Capablanca vs. Lasker, 1921". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  17. "Alekhine vs.Lasker, 1914". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-02.
  18. "Lasker vs. Alekhine, 1914". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  19. "Korchnoi vs. Portish, 1970". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  20. "Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, 1997". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  21. "Ponomariov vs. Adams, 2005". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  22. "Karpov vs. Miles, 1986". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  23. "Fischer vs. Spassky, 20th game, 1972". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  24. Alexander says that it appears that the arbiter approved the draw but Gligorić says that Spassky signed the scoresheet before the arbiter could rule on the claim.
  25. "AUTHORISED EDITION OF THE OFFICIAL CODE COMPILED BY THE FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DES ECHECS" (PDF). CCA - Chess Arbiters’ Association Britain. Retrieved 9 July 2020. By recurrence of position when the same position occurs three times in the game, and the same person is Player on each occasion, and if such Player claim the draw before the position is altered by further play, otherwise no claim can be sustained.
  26. "Laws historic". CCA - Chess Arbiters’ Association Britain. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  27. "CCA Britain". CCA - Chess Arbiters’ Association Britain. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  28. Par 15.C in FIDE Laws of Chess 1928[25] from "1931 - 1st FIDE Laws (BCF version)" on the Laws historic page[26] of the CCA Britain.[27]
  29. "Fide Laws of Chess 1975, translation" (PDF). CCA - Chess Arbiters’ Association Britain. Retrieved 9 July 2020. The position is considered the same if pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and if the possible moves of all the pieces are the same.
  30. Article 12.3 in Fide Laws of Chess 1975[29] from "1975" of the Laws historic page [26] of the CCAB[27]
  31. "Laws of Chess 1985" (PDF). CCA - Chess Arbiters’ Association Britain. Retrieved 9 July 2020. The position is considered the same if pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and if the possible moves of all the pieces are the same, including the right to castle or to take a pawn en passant.
  32. Article 10.5 (b) in Fide Laws of Chess 1985[31] from "1985" of the Laws historic page [26] of the CCAB[27]
  33. "Pillsbury vs. Burn, 1898". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2020-07-03.

References
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