My hypothesis is that the decline in drawing rate between 1984 and 1992 everything has to do with the two K-K's beating the [heck] out of everyone but each other.
Why is it a "pseudo-problem"? Draws can offer experienced and well-prepared players an easy way out. Shouldn't a sport require competitors to push themselves every game?
[DM: It's an old topic on this blog, and I don't want to rehash things I've written many times over the years. The most basic point is that a draw is in and of itself a normal result of a chess game. The problem that you're hinting at is the bloodless draw, when professionals getting paid a nice honorarium show up and lay an egg. That, when it happens, is a problem if it's persistent, and I've written that many times as well. My own preferred solution is to disinvite repeat offenders from a subsequent edition of the tournament. (I'm talking about high-level round-robins. I couldn't care less about draws in swiss events, where the player is taking all the financial risk and the organizer and the three spectators walking the hall aren't even implicitly owed anything in terms of quality or effort.)]
To be honest I haven't been reading this blog for all that long, so I don't know what you've already written about this. I also don't want to belabor a tired subject. However, I really, really have to say: this absolutely is a problem! Even in lower-level Swiss tournaments.
Have a look at this "game" played in a Swiss just last month by two elite grandmasters, the two tournament leaders at the time: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1613134. I don't see any way around it: this is a joke. You can't even tell me that they believed the game was already drawn. Why else would Vallejo-Pons, just one year before, have played a very similar position out to a win, against grandmaster opposition no less? http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1592766
[DM: Sure, Vallejo and Short wanted a day off for whatever reason. The position isn't some sort of trivial forced draw, though one should assume a far higher level of technique for Short than the aging Sveshnikov.]
Why even bother going through the motions--shaking hands, moving the pieces, 15 seconds later shaking hands again? Why not go straight to the organizer and simply say: "we don't feel like playing," or more honestly, "we're both strong players; each of us is worried he might lose; therefore, it is in our best interest not to compete, and we're not going to." In what other sport can something like this happen?
[DM: In many sports, but in different ways. One problem comes in taking the unit of competition in chess to be a game rather than a tournament or a match. So: in tennis, a player that has lost a break or especially two will often take the rest of the set off, saving energy and mentally recharging for the next set. A boxer will sometimes take a round or two off to regain energy after an especially draining round. But even at the level of a full game there are parallels. For example, pro football and pro basketball teams will sometimes go through the motions for games that have become meaningless. (For instance, if they've clinched a certain playoff seeding and can't improve on it, they may start a large number of second-team players, or at least quickly substitute them for the starters.)]
Your point about "financial risk" only reinforces my complaint that factors outside the game are influencing what happens inside the game: this only undermines the integrity of chess as a sport.
[DM: Seriously? (Insert reference to Captain Renault's being "shocked, shocked" to learn that there was gambling going on in Rick's cafe.) What pro sport (we'll pretend that chess is a sport) isn't like that? In a fantasy world where chess is nothing but art and its practitioners don't mind starving to death, we can have them play every game to mate or bare kings. If the aim is to achieve certain competitive goals, then if you know the limits of your stamina, you honor them; if you know that a quick draw with an important rival increases your chances of a big prize or achieving a norm, then you take it, given the opportunity.]
Your point about only "three spectators walking the hall" isn't fair: most chess fans follow such events online. I'm sure that many fans who didn't follow the event live would later have studied or enjoyed the competitive game these two grandmasters were meant to have played. Too bad it never happened.
[DM: Maybe you're a mega-fan, I guess, or even a giga-fan. I love the game and play through lots of games every year, but if there are some relatively short draws in a big swiss, I don't care. I don't care, first and foremost, because these guys aren't getting paid to put on a show; they're paying to try to earn food to put on their tables. (Grand slam tournaments are a completely different story!) Second, if it really bothers me as an online spectator that out of 100 games in a round, a handful (at most) were drawn quickly, I really need my friends to do an intervention. Is my day so devoid of purpose that I can spend it carefully replaying 95 games and feeling deprived that it wasn't 100?
I'm sure your life is far more interesting too, but then I don't really see what it is you think you or any spectator is missing out on. Maybe if someone's a big fan of player x, he'll be a little disappointed when x takes a day off, but to turn this into grounds for an anti-draw crusade is a case of the proverbial cure being worse than the disease.]
[DM: Perhaps I was a bit over the top in the last section of my replies. Anyway, if there were a lot of draws like Vallejo-Short in open events, I'd be more inclined to agree with more radical measures, but it doesn't strike me as a really big problem at the moment.]
Reader Comments (4)
My hypothesis is that the decline in drawing rate between 1984 and 1992 everything has to do with the two K-K's beating the [heck] out of everyone but each other.
Why is it a "pseudo-problem"? Draws can offer experienced and well-prepared players an easy way out. Shouldn't a sport require competitors to push themselves every game?
[DM: It's an old topic on this blog, and I don't want to rehash things I've written many times over the years. The most basic point is that a draw is in and of itself a normal result of a chess game. The problem that you're hinting at is the bloodless draw, when professionals getting paid a nice honorarium show up and lay an egg. That, when it happens, is a problem if it's persistent, and I've written that many times as well. My own preferred solution is to disinvite repeat offenders from a subsequent edition of the tournament. (I'm talking about high-level round-robins. I couldn't care less about draws in swiss events, where the player is taking all the financial risk and the organizer and the three spectators walking the hall aren't even implicitly owed anything in terms of quality or effort.)]
To be honest I haven't been reading this blog for all that long, so I don't know what you've already written about this. I also don't want to belabor a tired subject. However, I really, really have to say: this absolutely is a problem! Even in lower-level Swiss tournaments.
Have a look at this "game" played in a Swiss just last month by two elite grandmasters, the two tournament leaders at the time: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1613134. I don't see any way around it: this is a joke. You can't even tell me that they believed the game was already drawn. Why else would Vallejo-Pons, just one year before, have played a very similar position out to a win, against grandmaster opposition no less? http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1592766
[DM: Sure, Vallejo and Short wanted a day off for whatever reason. The position isn't some sort of trivial forced draw, though one should assume a far higher level of technique for Short than the aging Sveshnikov.]
Why even bother going through the motions--shaking hands, moving the pieces, 15 seconds later shaking hands again? Why not go straight to the organizer and simply say: "we don't feel like playing," or more honestly, "we're both strong players; each of us is worried he might lose; therefore, it is in our best interest not to compete, and we're not going to." In what other sport can something like this happen?
[DM: In many sports, but in different ways. One problem comes in taking the unit of competition in chess to be a game rather than a tournament or a match. So: in tennis, a player that has lost a break or especially two will often take the rest of the set off, saving energy and mentally recharging for the next set. A boxer will sometimes take a round or two off to regain energy after an especially draining round. But even at the level of a full game there are parallels. For example, pro football and pro basketball teams will sometimes go through the motions for games that have become meaningless. (For instance, if they've clinched a certain playoff seeding and can't improve on it, they may start a large number of second-team players, or at least quickly substitute them for the starters.)]
Your point about "financial risk" only reinforces my complaint that factors outside the game are influencing what happens inside the game: this only undermines the integrity of chess as a sport.
[DM: Seriously? (Insert reference to Captain Renault's being "shocked, shocked" to learn that there was gambling going on in Rick's cafe.) What pro sport (we'll pretend that chess is a sport) isn't like that? In a fantasy world where chess is nothing but art and its practitioners don't mind starving to death, we can have them play every game to mate or bare kings. If the aim is to achieve certain competitive goals, then if you know the limits of your stamina, you honor them; if you know that a quick draw with an important rival increases your chances of a big prize or achieving a norm, then you take it, given the opportunity.]
Your point about only "three spectators walking the hall" isn't fair: most chess fans follow such events online. I'm sure that many fans who didn't follow the event live would later have studied or enjoyed the competitive game these two grandmasters were meant to have played. Too bad it never happened.
[DM: Maybe you're a mega-fan, I guess, or even a giga-fan. I love the game and play through lots of games every year, but if there are some relatively short draws in a big swiss, I don't care. I don't care, first and foremost, because these guys aren't getting paid to put on a show; they're paying to try to earn food to put on their tables. (Grand slam tournaments are a completely different story!) Second, if it really bothers me as an online spectator that out of 100 games in a round, a handful (at most) were drawn quickly, I really need my friends to do an intervention. Is my day so devoid of purpose that I can spend it carefully replaying 95 games and feeling deprived that it wasn't 100?
I'm sure your life is far more interesting too, but then I don't really see what it is you think you or any spectator is missing out on. Maybe if someone's a big fan of player x, he'll be a little disappointed when x takes a day off, but to turn this into grounds for an anti-draw crusade is a case of the proverbial cure being worse than the disease.]
Thanks for your thoughtful responses!
[DM: Perhaps I was a bit over the top in the last section of my replies. Anyway, if there were a lot of draws like Vallejo-Short in open events, I'd be more inclined to agree with more radical measures, but it doesn't strike me as a really big problem at the moment.]