Proposal to reduce draw offers

[Mark Hannon]

Just don’t allow agreed draws. You can’t stop a game of tennis for example to ask if your opponent wants a draw. Making stalemate worth say .7 of a point and baring the king say .6 would widen the field of ending theory with out changing much of the structure of the game. In the same way as when passbacks to the goalkeeper were stopped in football and the game improved dramatically.Both players could appeal to arbiter or team captains in the case of absolutely drawn positions.

[JustinHorton]

Backpasses weren't stopped: what was stopped was that the keeper could no longer handle the ball in that situation.

I don't think football "improved dramatically", though it was a good innovation.

Preventing agreed draws, so that we might find ourselves playing dozens of moves of sterile chess with no real prospect of any further action, would be more like making a football match extend indefinitely beyond the ninety minutes, and having the further action consist of old-fashioned backpasses.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Just don’t allow agreed draws. You can’t stop a game of tennis for example to ask if your opponent wants a draw. Making stalemate worth say .7 of a point and baring the king say .6 would widen the field of ending theory with out changing much of the structure of the game. In the same way as when passbacks to the goalkeeper were stopped in football and the game improved dramatically.Both players could appeal to arbiter or team captains in the case of absolutely drawn positions.

What an absolutely terrible innovation on all levels.

Why are some people so determined to ruin chess??

[Kevin Thurlow]

If you reduce draw offers you lose the chance of seeing a wonderful reply like this to a draw offer in a CC game.

"Dear friend! Thank you for the offer of a draw. Yes, apparently, she will be in this party. But nevertheless, in the interests of the team, I will continue the game. Sorry, maybe in a few moves I'll continue the peace talks.
Sincerely, (name)"

The position seems to be a total Anish (0.00), but he is quite right - you are playing for the team.

And that's certainly the politest rejection I've ever heard...

[MJMcCready]

In snooker if no progress can be made in a particular frame, the referee has the power to restart it. Maybe arbiters should be given that power if it's clear neither player has attempted to win and the sofia rules have elapsed during the game.

[Stewart Reuben]

To MJMcCready
That would be giving too much discretion to the arbiter. We have the 5 fold occurrence of position now in case people keep on repeating.
The real problem is that so many games are drawn at the higher levels. The 12 in Carlsen v Caruana brought the matter to everybody's attention.
The problems with changing the laws in a 'minor' way are that : the history of the game is damaged, e,g, repetition, or stalemate; and that it may increase white's advantage too much. That could be overcome by every encounter be of TWO games, one with white and the other with black.
When I tried the 3/2/1/0 system in Rumania for an open Swiss it wasn't all that successful. The game was played, winner scoring 3 and loser 1. If drawn they played an Armageddon game. the scorer for the point got 2 points and loser 1.
Perhaps 4/2/1/0 would achieve the objective better, where winning the first game scored 4 points.
Another way is to award a substantial sum for each game won.

I remember watching snooker on tv and seeing Steve Davis offer a draw in the situation you describe. Then I knew Steve was a chessplayer. Of course, it is not a draw but a re-rack.

[Jonathan Bryant]

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.

Usually not. But I know one junior (but quite experienced even then) some years back had multiple draw offers rejected and didn't cease until the arbiter was called.
I know he knew he shouldn't be doing it because the same thing happened at the previous tournament.

And that's how I knew he knew he shouldn't be doing it when he did it to me in a League game after both of those tournaments had been played.

The problem - needless to say - was the adults around him who clearly knew of this behaviour and not the lad himself.


Like I say, that was some years ago. Hopefully he's grown up a bit now. Assuming he's still playing, of course.



He was an extreme case, but I remember once playing a few (3?) Golders Green rapid events in a row and picking up about a dozen draw offers when a pawn or more up in an endgame.

These are irritations, mind, and not things to solve by messing about with tournament rules.

[JustinHorton]

Not just juniors, by the way

[MJMcCready]

Yes Stewart I suppose so. On the coverage yesterday James Howell said the suggestion he'd heard that was most interesting was if there is a draw then colours are reversed, they play again and the clock continues also, this is then repeated until it almost becomes like rapidplay until a decisive result is achieved. That might work or just stick to 3 points for a win and one for a draw in all cases. It has been argued that when football was 2 points for a win and 1 for a draw it did benefit from changing to 3 points for a win and one for a draw, in whichever year that was.

[NickFaulks]

It has been argued that when football was 2 points for a win and 1 for a draw it did benefit from changing to 3 points for a win and one for a draw, in whichever year that was.

I don't know how, because there is no evidence that it made any difference at all to the number of draws.

[MJMcCready]

That's not quite true. The team winning the league started scoring more and winning more. If you look at the 70s most Div 1 winners lost or drew about one third of their games but when it changed they were picking up about 8 wins a season more on average. The main argument was that it led to more attacking play, the number of goals scored is noticeably higher after the 3 point rule was implemented.

[JustinHorton]

the number of goals scored is noticeably higher after the 3 point rule was implemented.

it did benefit from changing to 3 points for a win and one for a draw, in whichever year that was.

[Mike Gunn]

I think it depends on the context. If you are part of a spectator event and you are being paid for playing (e.g. the London Chess Classic) then have a rule which says no agreed draws before move 30 or whatever. If I'm playing for my club's 6th team in the XYZ league, all the other games are finished, the match result is determined then (really) who cares? Repeated draw offers are distracting but the current laws are adequate to deal with that (or they should be if your captain knows his stuff). Generally, I find that if I want to get down to the pub before closing time then one offer is enough - your opponent knows how you are minded and the pressure is on him to do something and sometimes that turns out to be to your advantage.

[Roger de Coverly]

one offer is enough - your opponent knows how you are minded and the pressure is on him to do something and sometimes that turns out to be to your advantage.

A general convention would be that if your draw offer is refused, you wait for a counter offer from your opponent. Otherwise you only repeat the offer if the position has materially changed since the last time.

[MJMcCready]

I think it depends on the context. If you are part of a spectator event and you are being paid for playing (e.g. the London Chess Classic) then have a rule which says no agreed draws before move 30 or whatever. If I'm playing for my club's 6th team in the XYZ league, all the other games are finished, the match result is determined then (really) who cares? Repeated draw offers are distracting but the current laws are adequate to deal with that (or they should be if your captain knows his stuff). Generally, I find that if I want to get down to the pub before closing time then one offer is enough - your opponent knows how you are minded and the pressure is on him to do something and sometimes that turns out to be to your advantage.

Yes that's true and its hard to tell if the situation has become better or worse. Capablanca often harped on about 'the draw death' when players were more unequal in terms of ratings professionalism. If there are more draws nowadays because players are more solid and less easily beaten I'm not sure how apt it is to complain about draws. Not too long ago Giri was dubbed the draw king which was a bit unfair because he did try to win a lot of his games but just couldn't finish off his opponents and they couldn't finish him off either. That's just progress overall I think.