Give me your top list of endgame prog artists

At any rate, down the rabbit hole and endgames, again, very different things so they really shouldn't be paired in this way. But that's splitting hares.

(tee hee, see what I did there)

Friede is the chess expert; I will put her on under my name.

This is Friede. In chess there is the so-called "Fifty moves rule". Article 5.2e of the official FIDE chess rules states: "A player can claim a draw if no capture has been made and no pawn has been moved in the last fifty moves". The term "move" means one player completing a turn followed by the other player completing a turn.

If his claim turns out to be true the referee calls the game a draw.

The idea behind this rule is to prevent a player from needlessly drawing out the game in the hope of some mistake by his opponent.

Article 9.3 of the rules then clarifies the procedure in which this is done: "The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, if: a. he writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, which shall result in the last 50 moves having been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture, or b. the last 50 consecutive moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture".

There are other rules for reaching a draw too. Of special interest is rule 9.2: "The game is drawn upon a correct claim by the player having the move, when the same position, for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves): a. is about to appear, if he first writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or b. has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move. Positions as in (a) and (b) are considered the same, if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares, and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same. Positions are not the same if a pawn that could have been captured en passant can no longer be captured in this manner. When a king or a rook is forced to move, it will lose its castling rights, if any, only after it is moved".

This rule is of special interest because of the famous 1972 world championship match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fisher. In one of the games of this match one of the players (I don't remember which one) claimed this, and the other agreed. However, the 3rd time the position was reached it was not with the same player having the right of move (which makes a huge difference in chess, especially in the endgame. For more information look up "Zugzwang", a Germanism in the English language). So technically this rule could not be applied. But of course the two players always have the right to call the game a draw if both agree.

As to "checkmates always becoming a reality": This is a very stupid movie device which always annoys me, especially when the player who was just checkmated looks surprised. In reality players realize they can't avoid being checkmated way ahead and give up the game. But of course this is not as dramatic as a sudden checkmate.