Eliminating/discouraging draws

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I am Geoff Chandler, the guy who put the exitement and colour back into chess.

I dare you to dress head-to-foot in the colour you assigned to your grading band (did you, or did you cunningly leave that out?).

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Chris

I'm not too sure how the colours go after that.
(ungraded players of course have to go naked.)

This 50 draws limit will bring in new strategy as players
will no longer shun opposite coloured Bishop endings.

You can mate with opposite coloured Bishops.



You cannot do that with Bishops of the same colour.

Nonsense aside, as mentioned, sometimes draws can just be as exciting
(and indeed more instructive) than positive/negative results.
In the latter one player has had to play a mistake, in the former both
players are slugging it out toe to toe without a decisive blunder.

A book 'DRAW! II' is required as un update to Heidenfeld's book
which was first published in 1984/85 (round about then).

[Ian Kingston]

Jeff Sonas has an interesting article about draws on Chessbase: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7499.

Briefly, the draw rate among top players has increased over the years, but the number of short draws between them is at a historic low.

[Roger de Coverly]

Jeff Sonas has an interesting article about draws on Chessbase: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7499.

Points made are that
draws are more likely when players are about the same strength
and
draws are more likely when the standard of play is high

He notes that the percentage of short draws amongst the elite has been falling, presumably things like the Sofia rules have some influence.

[Ian Kingston]

Part 2 of Jeff Sonas's analysis of drawn games has been published by ChessBase: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7629. More evidence that the sky is not falling.

And referring back to page 2 of this thread, I note that the Kosintseva sisters played their favourite short draw again in the final round of the Women's Grand Prix event at Nalchik. This is a threefold repetition of a threefold repetition, which must be some kind of record. It's fortunate that Zhao Xue's runaway victory made the outcome of the sisters' game largely irrelevant; I wonder what the organisers would have thought of such a game had it handed one or other of the two players first prize?