intentional draw opening

question. anyone know of an opening that leads to a very strong chance of a forced draw by three repetition. 

lets say i am playing an OTB tournament game vs. an opponent 400+ rating points higher than me. my chances of winnng are small to begin with. it may make sense for me to try to draw intentionally versus play for a win, if playing for the draw increases my chances of getting the draw. 

i can imaging an opening where maybe both sides appear to be playing normal moves, but suddenly I sacrifice a couple of minor pieces, but I force a draw by 3 fold. anyone know of any systems/structures/traps like this i can study?  it seems some opening would lend itself to this more than others. 

There is no such thing.

If there was such a thing , every lower rated would play it against  higher rated and get a draw without risk.

intentionally going for a short theoretical draw when you get the rare and highly instructional chance to play against a 400+ stronger player is the best way to ensure that in 5 years you will still be rated 400 points below him.

Luckily for you there are no openings lines which really allow you to force (or even just make very likely) a draw, so you will have to play a real game the next time you meet such an opponent. As a result you will learn a lot when analyzing the game, thus making the forst step towards reducing your 400-point elo gap.

Hi smirish,

Playing for a draw has been a topic in several chess articles and books.

There's quite some games where players wanted a draw, and tried to draw but ... lost instead.

Here's a personal anecdote :

Years ago I played in a clock simul against an International Master.

I arrived there in a really big hall with lots of people. I didn't know anyone there. The simul began and I got a gambit on the board that I had seen in games by Judit Polgar.

We played on, I sac-ed a minor piece, his king had to walk around, and I had at least a draw by perpetual check.

At the moment of draw proposal and acceptance, he looked at me with a bit of a grumpy face, and said : "You don't have anything here".

But for me the draw was delightful. And I got some award (the first to finish a game in the simul and not losing). I very happily went home that day.

So, the point of the story. At that time I was about 1800 otb rated. The IM 2400 something. That's 600 points difference.

I did choose to play my attacking tactic style, and I did not lose.

Instead of wanting to make a draw, you should play for a win, no matter how highly rated your opponent is.

Playing for a draw is a bad start in many cases. It's a wrong mind set, and it will probably not give you your own comfortable playing game.

Play what you are comfortable with.

There's top GMs playing draws against each other with "prefixed" opening lines. You could do that too when you play against a friend in last round of a tourney.

In general : play for a win, play for a good chess content game !

If you play your own chess, and play for a win, then a draw might be in reach as well.

If you play for a draw, then a loss can be near by instead.