Threefold Repetition
A rule allowing either player to claim a draw if the same position occurs three times with the same player to move.
The repeated position must be identical, including which castling and en passant rights are available — not merely a visually similar arrangement of pieces.
Etymology
A rule-history term, also known as “repetition of position” and, in USCF usage, “triple occurrence of position.” The number three was not fixed from the start: the Pest–Paris correspondence game of 1842–1845 was played under a rule requiring sixfold repetition, and the 1886 Steinitz–Zukertort world championship match rules still required six repetitions of moves. Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels (1843) already stated a threefold rule, but framed it as repetition of moves rather than of positions; London 1883 is identified as the first tournament use of a rule in the form “if a series of moves be repeated three times the opponent can claim a draw.” FIDE included the rule in its first edition of the laws in 1928; a mandatory fivefold-repetition draw, requiring no claim, was introduced in 2014.
First documented: 1843 — Handbuch des Schachspiels (Bilguer), 1843; first tournament use, London 1883; first FIDE codification, 1928
Translations
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