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Draw Offers In Hopelessly Lost Positions..

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General-Mayhem

Just play your move and ignore it, tbh i can think of a million things more distracting then a draw offer message appearing in chat

YeOldeWildman

It's just a question of chess etiquette: practically speaking, you get one draw offer per game, unless your opponent subsequently offers you a draw and you decline and continue play (and how often does that happen...?). Anything more is rude at best and harassment at worst.

Since this is the internet, rude behavior is, alas, to be expected frequently. So when it happens, just decline obnoxious draw offers and make sure you try extra hard to nail them.

One thing that might solve the problem (assuming it really is a problem...) would be to borrow an aspect of the doubling cube from backgammon. In backgammon once you double, your opponent gets control of the cube if he accepts the double and you can't double again.

The chess variant would work similarly to normal chess etiquette: either player can make the first draw offer, but if your opponent offers a draw and you decline, you get control of the "draw cube" (or token or whatever...) and now only you can offer a draw (or vice versa). Of course, there are enough things that need doing/fixing around here, I wouldn't even bother asking for it as a new feature.

RG1951

        The idea is worth considering.

aman_makhija

Ignore it. If you make a move the draw will automatically be declined.

macer75
aman_makhija wrote:

Ignore it. If you make a move the draw will automatically be declined.

Yup, that's what I always do.

RG1951
owltuna wrote:

Make it like the doubling cube. At the beginning of the game, either player may offer a draw. Once an offer is made and declined, only the opponent may now make the offer. USW. Easy to implement on a chess site.

        That's what is suggested above.

Scottrf

But I like spamming draw offers when my opponent is playing on dead drawn positions.

jivvi

I once had an opponent offer me a draw in this position:

Obviously he was offering facetiously, I declined and queened my pawn, he said "Good luck catching me," and I did.

A few games later, I returned the favour by offering him a draw in this position:

Obviously he declined, promoted his pawn, and then went on to give me the draw anyway.

Neither of us offered the draw more than once, and in both cases it was not so much annoying as it was humorous.

johnyoudell

I like owltuna's idea. It accords with chess etiquette as I was taught it.

Jed_Leland
RG1951 wrote:

        One presumes that when an opponent, who is almost certainly lost, offers a draw, he doesn't actually expect it to be agreed. To think otherwise would be extraordinarily naive. Does he then do it in an effort to distract the overwhelmingly likely winner? Does he imagine an outpouring of sympathy for his predicament will result? 

        I find it irritating when I have newly promoted Queen and rook against King and I am offered a draw twice. Would drawing this to the attention of the website managers result in anything? I know others have complained about the same thing - in some cases where multiple draw offers have been rapidly fired off and declined.

I've seen that happen many times. I've been offered a draw when I was ahead by a pawn, a piece, a rook -- even a queen! It's cheesy at best, unsportsmanlike at worst. The best thing to do is ignore it. A legitimate draw offer deserves the courtesy of a reply, but the type of offer we're talking about here does not.

kingsrook11

There is also the possibility that you could press the accept button by mistake, especially when pressured for time.

jivvi
repac3161 wrote:

There is also the possibility that you could press the accept button by mistake, especially when pressured for time.

That's probably what people are hoping for when they offer it multiple times, rather than just once because it's funny. I heard of a game OTB where someone who had three queens against a knight (or some similarly crushing advantage) just looked up and said "Draw?" with a smirk on his face, because of how funny it was to think the position wasn't totally won. His opponent simply said "Yes," and once the offer was accepted it couldn't be retracted, so the game was drawn. Serves him right I reckon.

There is also something to be said for making a draw offer pause the opponents clock while they are deciding whether to accept it, to remove the possibility for people to use it as an unfair advantage when they are losing on the board and winning on time.

solskytz

Or at least to give a five or ten second time delay after making the draw offer and before the opponent's clock starts ticking. 

In official competitions now, OTB, from 1/7/2014 a player will have to offer a draw on his own time, after making his move and before hitting the clock. 

blowerd
solskytz wrote:

Or at least to give a five or ten second time delay after making the draw offer and before the opponent's clock starts ticking. 

In official competitions now, OTB, from 1/7/2014 a player will have to offer a draw on his own time, after making his move and before hitting the clock. 

Of course that is impossible to enforce on chess.com as soon as the move is made it then goes to your opponents time.  I usually make my move then ask for a draw whilst my finger is on the clock, before pressing the clock, so the opponent has to think about the draw offer on their own time.