Another anti-draw system

All Things Chess
1

First, a few words in favor of drawn games.

They’re often natural results between two competent players. Without trying to draw (I’d resolved not to make or take premature offers, and my opponents were equally determined), I’ve had seven draws in my last nine games.

I drew against stronger players four times and weaker players three times. I was disappointed seven times. :slight_smile:

So we should accept classical draws as natural, and reflect these draws in scoring & rating.

But we should try to break ties, too. Decisive match results are more “fun” (players, spectators, sponsors).

The following system is intended for events in which the players are relatively evenly matched, and probably best left for one round (perhaps two?) per day.

Each round (played between the same two opponents) is worth 16 points and can be decided in one to three games: A) Classical, B) Action C) Blitz.

A) Classical game:
EITHER
someone wins; final score of round is 16-0 or 0-16 (All 16 points to winner).
OR
classical game is drawn (running score 6-6, with 4 points to be awarded in…)

B) Action game:
(colors reversed) immediately follows for the remaining 4 points.
EITHER
one player wins. Score is then 10-6 or 6-10.
OR
action game is also drawn, 2 of the remaining 4 points are awarded (running score 7-7, with 2 points up in the air) and…

C) Blitz game:
(colors reversed) with possible outcomes: W-L-D => 9-7, 7-9, or 8-8. (I don’t like the artificiality of Armageddon systems.)

IN A SWISS-SYSTEM USING THIS SCORING METHOD, THE PAIRINGS FOR NEXT ROUND WOULD BE DONE ON THE CLASSICAL GAME RESULTS ALONE (1, ½, 0).

(Possible modifications: ordering within each classical score group is done based on the 16-point tournament score. In later rounds, each 8-point tournament score range might be paired as its own group.)

Each game is rated according to its own rating system (Classical, Rapid, Blitz)

The 16-point system is used ONLY for prizes.

P.S. The same system could be used in World Championship matches! In that case, it might make sense NOT to alternate colors in the three stages of each round.

2

Oh, and FIDE’s World Cup should be double-elimination, to make the results slightly less random. :smiley:

3

I tend to agree that there isn’t anything wrong with the way things are now, but if one wanted to shake things up a bit simply give the the win to the lower rated player whenever there is a draw.

4

You could do the same thing with the NFL by simply adding four more weeks to the post-season.
Round 1 in each conference (same as now) 6@3, 4@5
Round 2 (extra round) Rd 1 winners play each other, Rd 1 losers play each other (one is knocked out)
Round 3 (currently round two with round one winners at 1 and 2)
double-winner@2, other two (one is knocked out)
Round 4 (extra round) non-loser@1, other two (one is knocked out)
Round 5 (extra round) non-loser gets a bye, other two (one is knocked out)
Round 6 (currently round three - at better seed)
at non-loser
Round 7 (extra round, and only if needed)
at better seed
Superbowl

Alternatively (with adjustments to delay post-season rematches and one less round needed)
Rd 1 = 6@1, 5@2, 4@3
Rd 2 = weakest two winning seeds, strongest two losing seeds, other two (3@2, 6@4, 5@1)
Rd 3 = all losers at enough winners to even things out (3@1, 4@2) or (4@1, 5@3, 2-bye)
Rd 4 = same as round three (2@1) or (2@1, 4@3) or (single-losers match-up/winner-only bye)
Rd 5 = same as round four (1@2) or (single-loser @ winner-only 2)

5

But a draw is a draw, not a win. Again, a draw is a natural (and logical) result of many games.

6

That is the point. A draw wouldn’t be a win, it would be a loss to the higher rated player, the player that is suspose to be able to win.

7

This idea nicely complements what I’ve been advocating for a long time:

  1. Before the game higher rated player gets handcuffed behind their back. They can use their teeth to move the pieces and chin, forehead, or nose to press the clock.
  2. Lower rated player gets to lay two free punches on the higher rated player.

This way we can finally have a fair chess fight…

Michael Langer

8

Sometimes draws are more exciting than wins. The balance of offense and defense can create intriguing play testing the limits of knowledge and imagination. One of the most difficult and instructive games I have studied is the famous Lasker, E. vs. Lasker, Ed. duel from the 1924 New York tournament.

I can understand the desire to eliminate the short, fightless draw. But these anti-draw systems show a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the game of chess. Changing the scoring will cause players to toss a lot of strategy and endgame theory out the window in favor of reckless play. For what? To please a few whiny spectators that sniffle that they do not like to see draws? If two players play a great game that ends in a draw, they should not be punished for it.

One of the silliest systems is giving the lower rated the win if there is a draw. There would be even less inclination to play for the win by many players. You do realize that this would lead to more sandbagging? Why improve your rating if doing so puts you at a disadvantage? Do you really want to see more Exchange Variations of the Slav Defense played? Or 5.Qe2 lines of the Petroff? Much of opening theory is designed to find equalizing lines against attacking systems. Why would we seek to favor more boring theory?

9

Slightly off topic…

The Exchange Slav is surprisingly interesting. I’ve had three full-blooded fights this year: two wins and a loss, no draws.

Nakamura beat Giri with 5.Qe2 not too long ago.

But that’s a question of attitude. Too many players play these lines toothlessly, and we don’t want to encourage toothless play.

10

Or one could claim that the higher rated player should receive draw odds because the lower rated hasn’t played well enough to win.

11

Heh.

12

Anyone who proposes changing the rules to discourage or eliminate draws simply doesn’t understand chess. A draw is a natural result, especially between two closely matched players.

What most of us wish to reduce is the tendency for short, fight-less draws. Many solutions have been tried: Sofia rules, 3-1-0 scoring, no draws by agreement before move 30 or 40 and a variety of proposals to break ties with a mini-match. Pick your favorite! Organizers and sponsors of professional events can also take a player’s propensity for draws into account before sending an invitation.

If draw (or stalemate) counts as less than 0.5-0.5, would it be better for one side or the other to deliberately throw an even game? What if the players secretly collaborate against the other competitors? We already sometimes see this in the last round at big money events, and a non-symmetric, non-conservative scoring system would only increase the temptations.

Michael Aigner

13

What I was trying to imagine was a system that reflected draws as an achievement that earned points for both players, but also a system that recognized that a decisive result in each round would nevertheless be desirable.

So a drawn result in a tournament game would result in allocating 75% of the round’s points to each player (37.5% each), then spending another hour on a rapid playoff game to allocate the remaining 25%. If perchance the second game were also drawn, 6.25% of the remaining points would be allocated to each player, and they’d be playing an extra fifteen minutes for the remaining 12.5% of round points. I chose 16 points per round because I assumed that no one would want to deal with three-digit fractions.

Tacking on an hour and fifteen minutes to an already-stressful round is not a trivial addition: it would probably be appropriate only for one game per day events, and the complications of scoring would become most meaningful in longer events.

I don’t think this would discourage draws, except that a win at any stage allows both players to move on to the next round, and a draw (while meaningful) does not fully guarantee 50% of the round’s available points.

As cumbersome as this system is, it seems far better to me than 3-1-0 soccer-style scoring, and it doesn’t violate “chess logic.”

At the world championship level, the rapid/blitz playoffs would be held on the day of every draw, so that the title would be more likely to be decided by in classical play (the player who’s behind would know the tiebreak situation and push accordingly) than by the mere accumulation of wins at rapid & blitz. Unfortunately, we have already had two world championship titles decided by something other than classical play.

14

Since my explanation above seems hopelessly unwieldly even to me :smiley: , perhaps this chart might better explain my idea.

15

As a compliment (maybe a dubious one) to bill’s system, or used with other systems, i thought this might be interesting. it almost unquestionably works best with d5 or d0, and does not do so great with increment systems

assume the classically timed game is g:120, d(somethign low) or even g:180, so there’s no 40 move rule or whatever.

game 1 ends in a draw, player A has 35 minutes, player b has 12 minutes.

Switch sides, but keep the times frozen at that amount.

Game 2 is a draw, player A has 7 mintues left, player b has 4 minutes.

Switch sides again, clocks still frozen Player A makes his advantage count. He gets more than half a point, but less than a full point.

This would obviously change the classical game some as there’s now more of a game theory element (which makes it unsuitable for championship events), but it might be fun otherwise.

16

The is a good system, but I have one problem with it:

Should not all players be rated based on the same number of games?

From Allen Priest in the other forum:

These irrelevant issues now have to be dealt with.

17

Easy solution to that one: Rate only the classical games. The others are just unrated tiebreaker games which would affect the prizes (including titles), but not the rating points.

Bill Smythe

18

. .

Absurdly terrible idea. (Nothing personal.)
This idea would have every chess game to be replaced with an Armageddon Chess game.

This idea would give big motivation to one player to play draw-ishly.

This idea would violate the sportsmanship principle of fairness.
. .

19

Actually, I think the best anti-draw system is the one set forth in this topic, especially as modified here.

Bill Smythe

20

All players will have played the same number of classical games. I really don’t care about my rating under other systems. :smiley: