Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Cynical thoughts on chess draws

If you don't like draws in chess, try playing or following a game designed so that draws are not possible. May I suggest Hex which relies on a fixed-point theorem from algebraic topology to prove draws cannot occur.

If two players both want to draw, no rules are going to stop them. In fact, rules attempting to prevent short draws are simply going to make the implicitly mutually agreed drawn games even more outlandish. It's better just to let them draw so it's explicit.

If you follow chess for the love of the game, and you feel two players prematurely agreed to a draw in a position for which which you feel there was still some fight left in it, then simply employ your very own 2700-grandmaster-in-a-box (also known as your computer) to continue the game. Its result is just as good for the love of the game.

If you follow chess for the players and political intrigue, then permitting short draws just adds to that and lets you see the players' personalities and playing styles.

The Christmas Draw rule, where if the first player offers a draw, the draw offer remains open after any subsequent moves, no matter how badly the second player does, seems very interesting and should be tried out. Its flaw is negotiated draws via signals: "Shall we go for three-fold repetition?"

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