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        Arimaa >> Off Topic Discussion >> Grandmaster draws in chess
        
(Message started by: Fritzlein on May 12^th, 2006, 2:23pm)

Title: Grandmaster draws in chess
Post by Fritzlein on May 12^th, 2006, 2:23pm

I just read that the Mtel Masters chess tournament, currently underway, has become the latest experiment in banning draws by agreement. However, to ban draws by repetition would apparently be too fundamental a change to the rules of chess to be tolerated by the players. 3-fold repetition remains a loophole as a way to tacitly "agree" to a draw. In the first round, two of three games were drawn by the repetition loophole, but not before some prolonged fighting by the side with the advantage.

In the second round, the organizers must have been thrilled to see a theoretically drawn rook and pawn endgame be fought to the death. It eventually converted to a theoretically drawn king+rook versus king+knight pawnless endgame. But theoretically drawn doesn't mean there is no play left in the game. Kamsky finally ground down Bacrot in 103 moves! (That's just the number of moves to resignation; actually checkmating would have taken up to 120 moves.)

I can understand if the players don't like how controlling the organizers are to forbid draws by agreement, but as a spectator, I'm loving it. The fact is that even the best chess players can blunder in theoretically drawn positions. For that matter, even the opening position of chess is probably theoretically drawn. We play for the sake of play...

http://www.mtelmasters06.com/en/

Title: Re: Grandmaster draws in chess
Post by unic on May 12^th, 2006, 3:56pm

The Mtel masters tournament used the same rule last year... and from the reports from that year, it was remarked that in particular Anand often traded down to bare kings in the games before ending them.

Title: Re: Grandmaster draws in chess
Post by chessandgo on May 12^th, 2006, 6:40pm

Are you really sure that Bacrot blundered ?

Title: Re: Grandmaster draws in chess
Post by Fritzlein on May 12^th, 2006, 7:20pm

on 05/12/06 at 18:40:18, chessandgo wrote:

Are you really sure that Bacrot blundered ?

I certainly don't have the chess skill to understand the KRkn endgame, but from checking online tablebase I can verify that the position after promotion was a draw with best play on both sides. Bacrot blundered on move 79 to allow a win, but Kamsky blundered on move 80, giving Bacrot another chance to find the correct move from the same position. Bacrot repeated his mistake on move 81, again giving Kamsky a chance to force a win. Kamsky made some progress then, but on move 88 Kamsky again blundered, allowing Bacrot to salvage a draw. Two moves later, however, Bacrot again didn't find the one saving move, and it became a win again for Kamsky. From there on out Kamsky preserved the theoretical win.

If two grandmasters who have devoted their lives to chess can between them make five outcome-changing blunders in a position with only four pieces left on the board, then I don't feel so bad about my mistakes in Arimaa! (For example, not even considering Adanac's move 19w in our postal even though I spent two hours on my move 18b :-()

Title: Re: Grandmaster draws in chess
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 4^th, 2006, 12:38pm

The repetition rule in Arimaa may be a slightly inelegant way to prevent draws, but draws are such a scourge in chess, I would accept an even uglier fix if necessary. I just read that Dortmund Sparkasse chess tournament has had 17 draws in 20 games so far. Only 15% decisive games! Fewer ties than that prompted the National Hockey League to decide that their game was broken, and change the rules.