Dynamic Scoring

In the 1920s Emanual Lasker proposed Dynamic Scoring.  Lasker used a 10 point system.  I have divided his system by 10 so that a win by checkmate equals the traditional 1.0. 

What Lasker proposed was:

checkmating you opponent= 1-0

Stalemating your opponent = 0.8-0.2

exposing your opponent's king= 0.6-.04

draw  0.5-0.5

I am not sure what constitutes exposing your kings, but presumably it would include perpetual check.  What I like about this system is that it would encourage attacking chess.  If an attack doesn't produce a mate it still has a good chance of producing a marginal 0.6 win. 

One drawback I see is that it might increase White's edge, there are many openings where White can force a perpetual.  In a double round tournament this wouldn't be a problem and in a match it should work.

A game is only won if it ends in mate, or will end in mate, hence people resigning. What on Earth is a marginal win?

Marginal wins seems self explaining.  It is common in boxing, wrestling and war simulations.  A marginal win would be exposing the enemy king.

What does that mean?

Exposing the king would need to be defined.  I don't know if Lasker defined it.  For right now I would say forcing a perpetual check.  It could be broader than that, but a precise definition would be critical.  It would be analogous to a near fall or predicament in wrestling

I think what is being described as a marginal win here would be if, the game ended in what would otherwise be a stalemate by the current standard, but because white had the initiative and inflicted more damage (took a pawn or two, exposed the castled king, disrupted black's position greatly, forced black into a totally defensive position, etc) than black ever had a chance to inflict upon white, it would be a " marginal win".

I don't really like this idea so much, from the standpoint that it reminds me of the openings described early, that if played perfectly by white, due to the initiative, black will have to make certain concessions, unless of course, black would rather lose. Thus it ends in a perpetual check.

I think we would have the closest scores in chess history suddenly. Everyone would play for margainal wins with white and once they had an advantage, play to draw with black.

Which is better than the way the candidates matches and world championship matches are played now.  If you followed the last championship cycle you noticed that everyone played the regular games as conservatively as possible and saved their energy and novelties for the tie-breaking blitz games.  Right now the world championship is decided by who is the best blitz player.

I got into it with NM Reb awhile back over this. I told him that is was my opinion that the best chess player in the world, probably should be better at short time controls. I concluded that, if you give anyone long enough, with a finite set of possibilities, they could probably find the best move, thus perpetuating the draw problem.

Of course his response was that blitz isn't chess. On some level I agree that standard time control is the purest form and my preference as well, but I like the idea that my champion is the best chess player, in every sense of the idea. I realize they all have strengths and weaknesses, but perhaps changing things up a bit and testing their pure chess ability, as opposed to their memory, of a bunch of drawish lines would be for the better.

Imagine if a WCC competition was held in which there was a blitz portion, standard portion and a 960 portion. It would show each player's, memory,experience,patience, and endurance in standard chess.  For raw calculation ability, ability to improvise, strategize quickly and play any position, I advocate 960. For showing how ingrained their learning is, quick thinking, nerves, and being able to " play chess against one's opponent, perhaps more than chess itself ", blitz is ideal. If there is a tie, do something perhaps less taxing in totality, but that is still rather challenging. Use puzzles. I realize that can potentially be problematic after a time, but maybe by then we could come with a better format.

If the standard matches were shortened to say 11 games, instead of 21+, that would help to be less taxing. I also like the idea that if a player is going to make standard his bread and butter, he has to be assertive and make somethings happen much faster. I think that going to this type of system would force the players to take a step back in terms of how to train. They can't simply memorize a repertoire and study key opponents, with so much more to consider. It would certainly level the playing field in certain ways. It also in my mind would help to lend the proper creedence to the title Grandmaster.

NM Reb's reply to me was " do we have to win a spitting contest too" ?

I understand how he feels somewhat, but I told him they could also determine a seperate champion for each type of chess. I personally would like the consideration of Grand Chess as a possible idea to seperate who is really the best, if puzzles aren't considered a viable long term tie breaker.

As much as I like Grand Chess, I think it could be a bit taxing to ask for it to be a seperate event, other than a tie break. Maybe we need to move on as a community, to this or some other form of chess, if standard has become too mundane ?

This would be my WCC format,  11- standard games (standard time controls), 11- blitz games starting at 5 minutes w/ no bonus, minus 15 seconds for each successive game, 11 - 30 minute - 960 games. In the event of a tie, give the players a choice as to whether they play 1 game of Grand Chess or do a series 20 puzzles to settle it.

I still haven't come up with a "fair" method for how to decide the tie break event, if they disagree. I am considering the idea of allowing the higher rated player to decide. It would be an additional reward for people to be completely competitive in every event, in all of their games, hopefully stopping so many draws, instead of them perhaps doing as little as possible to get by, until they get to such a competition.

Blitz favors the attacker and makes positional chess pointless.  I like complex strategic games and that doesn't happen in Blitz.  Blitz is all tactics and that is just a fraction of what chess is about.

Also from the fan point of view.  There is great pleasure in playing through and following a beautifully played game of chess.  I have no desire to study a blitz game.  I would never purchase an anthology of blitz games even if they decided the world championship.

Positional players can still take advantage of their skills somewhat in both 960 and blitz. Should the WCC always be decided by a series of mundane positional squabbles, that are mostly draws?

Strategic players can certainly use their skills in 960 chess.  The problem with 960 chess is that so many of the starting positions give White a substantial advantage.  I guess you can eliminate the bad positions.

  The whole point of dynamic scoring is that there would be sufficiently fewer draws if stalemate was .8 win.  Generally you have to convert a positional game to a winning endgame to reap the benefits of your strategic play.  The stalemate rule severely limits the number of endgames that are winning.  Generally you have to have an overwhelming advantage to be able to convert to a winning endgame.  For instance a King and two Knights vs. a King cannot be won because of the stalemate rule.

The scoring should in theory encourage attackers since if their attack fails to produce a mate, they could still score a marginal .6 win which could decide a match or a tounament.

Interesting. It would become like judo. I just scored an ipon :-)

"Exposing the king" sounds like it might be a translation of the concept of "bare king," which I believe means you have no pieces or pawns left. 

In Belgium there is a law against exposing the King. You can expose the queen, but not the king...

But who do you reward those scores to in the stalemate? The player who lost their material and position, who might have been the one who forced it, or the player who played great and then blew the opportunity for checkmate?

The player who did the stalemating would score .8.  It is very rare that someone stalemates by blowing a checkmate.   If someone stalemates their opponent by incompetence than the loss of .2 points should be sufficient penalty.  Brilliant stalemate combinations would save .2 points instead of .5.  The real problem with stalemate is that there are many endgames where the superior side cannot make progress without stalemating his opponent such as: King + Bishop + rook pawn of the wrong color vs. Lone king; or King + Queen vs. King + knight pawn on the 7th.

I don't think Lasker meant the medieval concept of bare mate when he talked about exposing the king.  If Lasker had intended bare mate, I think he would have simply used the term bare mate.  I think exposing the king would be forcing the king out into the open with a  sacrifice and then either forcing a threefold repetition of position or a perpetual check.  I am curious if Lasker defined the term.    I don't think it would include perpetual checks in the endgame where the king is exposed due to trying to win the endgame rather than a sacrifice by the opponent.

When I have a stalemate, it is almost always by agreement, perpetual check, three fold, or insufficient material. I tend to miss the draw, but not during attempted checkmates, unless against a computer.

This is another problem with the psuedo win. How do you award it for those other types of stalemates? If by agreement, 50 move, three fold, or insufficient material, all of those can be as a result of equal play.

Lol, did he stalemate someone and get mad?

I am not sure what the motive is. It could be to get rid of stalemate, using the guise that it is to improve chess quaility and scoring for tourneys, particularly.

I offered what I consider a much better solution that rewards people for their undying equal play, instead of having to completely rethink how to take advantage of scenarios to try winning cheap points, in what will probably just continue to be more purposely drawn games.

Standing ovation!!