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Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 6:09 pm
by Nick Burrows
https://mobile.twitter.com/LevAronian/s ... 8382877696?
People offer draws to avoid risk. Add risk to the draw offer! E.g. a 10 minute penalty for offering a draw. Or the more controversial, allow the opponent to play on with either colour.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 6:41 pm
by NickFaulks
Not new ideas of course - perhaps there are no new ideas in this well trodden subject. However, if Levon is being serious rather than just provocative, perhaps there is scope for a bit of consultation.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:36 pm
by Alex Holowczak
I made a counter-argument. A v B. A moves, offers a draw and presses the clock. B sits there. And sits there. With his flag hanging, he decides to swap colours. Now suddenly A has hardly any time to play the black position. I'm not sure that's fair.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:40 pm
by Richard Bates
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:36 pm
I made a counter-argument. A v B. A moves, offers a draw and presses the clock. B sits there. And sits there. With his flag hanging, he decides to swap colours. Now suddenly A has hardly any time to play the black position. I'm not sure that's fair.
I assume you take your clock time with you!

I disagree that people offer draws just to avoid risk. Often it’s done as a psychological ploy, or even just to ascertain your opponent’s intentions and/or thoughts about the position.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:51 pm
by Alex Holowczak
Richard Bates wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:40 pm
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:36 pm
I made a counter-argument. A v B. A moves, offers a draw and presses the clock. B sits there. And sits there. With his flag hanging, he decides to swap colours. Now suddenly A has hardly any time to play the black position. I'm not sure that's fair.
I assume you take your clock time with you!
Good shout.

Aronian was suggesting it was a great idea and easy to implement. I'd thought of the liveboard implications where it would be anything but easy, but I don't think resetting the clock would be a very exciting job.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 9:15 pm
by NickFaulks
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:51 pm
Aronian was suggesting it was a great idea and easy to implement.
While there would obviously be complications to be overcome, in the regulations and then in practice, I do not doubt that this could be done. The real question is whether players, even Aronian himself, have any genuine appetite for it.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 9:40 pm
by Brian Towers
It's a very silly suggestion. Saying "Would you like a draw" is not the only way to offer a draw. Repeating the position 3 times, or twice giving the opponent to play the third repetition, is also a draw offer. Is anybody seriously suggesting you should be "fined" 10 minutes for that?

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 10:27 pm
by NickFaulks
Brian Towers wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 9:40 pm
Saying "Would you like a draw" is not the only way to offer a draw. Repeating the position 3 times, or twice giving the opponent to play the third repetition, is also a draw offer.
True, and particularly so in boring positions that are headed for a draw anyway. But take a look at the end of Radjabov - Dubov from yesterday.

https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2019-ha ... bov_Daniil

I felt there was still some play in that one and was disappointed that it came to a premature end. Unless the result was agreed before the game, would you offer a draw and take the risk that your opponent may have seen something in his own position that he is unhappy about?

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 12:32 am
by Ian Thompson
Richard Bates wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:40 pm
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:36 pm
I made a counter-argument. A v B. A moves, offers a draw and presses the clock. B sits there. And sits there. With his flag hanging, he decides to swap colours. Now suddenly A has hardly any time to play the black position. I'm not sure that's fair.
I assume you take your clock time with you!
If A is short of time and B has plenty of time left that would put an end to A offering a draw in a winning position because they fear losing on time before they can win it.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 6:51 am
by Richard Bates
There is of course another massively obvious flaw in the “idea” (let’s ignore what it would do for chess databases etc!).

Player A is trying to win in, say, an ending, and plays on for hours trying to create the decisive breakthrough but just can’t find a win. Eventually they finally give up and offer a draw. Unfortunately there is a win there, they just hadn’t seen it ... but player B had...

Now i suppose somebody really keen on the idea might argue that Player A could pursue some other route - manufacture a threefold repitition or rely on the50 move rule etc. But if the intention/motivation is to prevent draws where both sides believe there is no play in the position (for either colour) I have a far simpler solution which would “work” just as well and be even easier to implement. Ban draw offers. Has anyone suggested that one?

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:15 am
by Kevin Thurlow
International Correspondence Chess Federation did introduce a rule, "Draw offers are restricted to one offer per player every 10 moves (called the ten moves draw rule)." This seems clear, but in a current event, an opponent offered a draw through the server, I declined, 6 moves later he offered a draw through the comments, (at this point I complained to the TD), then next move the opponent claimed a draw by repetition (it wasn't), then he made another draw offer through the server. At this point I claimed the game, pointing out that 4 draw offers in 11 moves was a clear breach of the rules. The TD told me that he would not do anything as two of the draw offers were not correct, and therefore didn't count as draw offers. I told him he was wrong.

Ideally, once one player has offered a draw, it is up to the other player to offer the next one, but maybe a properly enforced "10-move draw rule" could work. One opponent offered a draw on move 10 and I still don't know if they thought they could only offer a draw on move 10!

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:32 am
by Roger de Coverly
Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:15 am
Ideally, once one player has offered a draw, it is up to the other player to offer the next one
Many players informally follow that convention, with the extension that it's acceptable to offer a second draw if the position or possibly just the clock situation has radically changed since the first offer. You also sometimes find that the player offering the draw has seen further into the position than the person declining it.

Juniors sometimes make persistent and unjustified draw offers, I suppose summoning the arbiter and having the offering player censored for distraction etc. is a bit extreme.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:02 am
by NickFaulks
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:32 am
Juniors sometimes make persistent and unjustified draw offers, I suppose summoning the arbiter and having the offering player censored for distraction etc. is a bit extreme.
I don't think it is extreme, but in my experience it may not be necessary. They may be unaware that they are doing anything wrong, and I sometimes wonder whether they have been trained to behave in this way. In that case a reply that you do not wish to hear any more draw offers should suffice - if only this were also true with adult players.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 12:35 am
by Stewart Reuben
I played in FIDE Rated tornament In Las Vegas sometime in the 1990s. My oppoent, an Austrian, persistently offered a draw, afer making his moev and pressing the clock. I usually just let that make ride. People make mistakes. After a time , I got annyed and callied for the arbiter.
He sadi, 'Stop offering draws.' Plaintively, my opponent said, 'When can I offer a draw.?' The arbiter replied, 'Don't offer Mr Reuben a draw, he doesn't want one.' He could and probably should have given me more time.
eventually it came down to Rook and Bishop against Rook and I failed to win.

Re: Proposal to reduce draw offers

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 1:02 am
by Keith Arkell
Not easy, as even were you to win his Rook it's still a draw.