Do we really want to induce players to make errors or blunders?
Anish Giri's 14 Draws
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In Robert Fischer's "My 60 Memorable Games" game 30 is against "The Drawing Master" of that day, Trifunovich (Bled, 1961). Of course Fischer beat him. The difference in Giri's games is he played lines that are not drawish. He had many winning positions. Commentators said he was never in trouble in any game. That's remarkable against the competition he faced.
Petar Trifunovic was chosen to play in the first FIDE Interzonal at Saltsjobaden in 1948. There he managed to secure quite a few decisive results: 5 wins, 10 draws and 4 losses.
In Candidates events, the main competitors to Giri would seem to be Henrique Mecking who scored =11 -1 in a Candidates match with Polugaevsky in 1977, and Vlastimil Hort who chalked up =13 -3 against Spassky also in 1977.
At the Petrosian Memorial in Moscow 1999, Balashov, Hort, Smyslov, Spassky and Taimanov all managed to draw all of their games. It was only 9 rounds though.
Giri himself has come close to a perfect record before. At Tashkent Grand Prix 2014, he managed to draw 10 out of his 11 games, losing one to Karjakin. At the Sinquefield Cup in 2015, Giri drew 8 out of his 9 games, spoiling things by actually beating Grischuk.
wayne_thomas wrote:
At the Petrosian Memorial in Moscow 1999, Balashov, Hort, Smyslov, Spassky and Taimanov all managed to draw all of their games. It was only 9 rounds though.
In 1999, Balashov was 50, Hort was 55, Smyslov was 78, Spassky was 62 and Taimanov was 73.
Giri is twenty-two years old.
loubalch wrote:
Tournament organizers have tried for years to reduce the number of draws in their events in order to make the games more exciting and decisive.
I mean, who wants to see a player win an important tournament with all draws? One suggestion to reduce the number of draws might be to stop rewarding players for drawing games. What if draws had a score of zero (0), and losses a score of -1? (Wins would remain +1).
The standings in the recent Candidates Tournament would remain the same, but the point spreads would be markedly changed. Giri, with his 14 draws, finished only 1/2 point behind Anand and Caruana, who together played 10 decisive games!
Under the proposed system, Giri would have finished a full point behind them. Not to single out Giri, who was tied with three other players, all of whom were only 1-1/2 points behind the winner, Karjakin, who played 5 decisive games. Under the new system, they would have been full 3 points behind.
Not counting draws would force players to take more risks, fight for the win, and I believe, make for more exciting tournaments.
Chess would become more like scaling Mt. Everest, you can't make it to the top without taking a few risks!
As I recall, there were a number of Championship Matches in the past where draws didn't count. Capablanca vs. Laker comes to mind.
Trying to coerce people to take risk just to win is stupid and it will only cause bad chess. Chess is more than a sport. A well played game should end in a draw.
Tigran Petrossian was also (in)famous for his high number of draws. Yet he managed to become world champion. The difference is that, in his years, the candidates was a play off event, so you could become the challenger by only win a few games. It is different in an all round tournament, you should finish at least +2. That what Carlsen pin pointed when he was asked about his negative record against Giri: the dutch has never won an elite tournament so far.
Yeah, funny!
Naka would play Kg8 because he'd "adjust it" during his own turn and be forced to play it.
A post said "who wants to see a tournament won by someone with all draws? Not possible with the exception of all players drawing every game with a tied result.
I am aspiring to play like Giri and never lose. A 2700+ rating is not to shabby.
Oct 16, 2016
0
#99
TRextastic wrote:
While watching the Candidates, the hosts were fielding Twitter questions and a random person mentioned that their favorite player was Anish Giri. How is that possible? He bores me to death. Is anyone a fan of Giri's play and can enlighten me? Drawing 14 games in a row, to me, is the equivalent of using your arm to block the goal on an air hockey table: sure, you can guarantee you won't lose, but it's boring as hell to watch.
They were draws, but exciting games were played by Giri.
Tournament organizers have tried for years to reduce the number of draws in their events in order to make the games more exciting and decisive.
I mean, who wants to see a player win an important tournament with all draws? One suggestion to reduce the number of draws might be to stop rewarding players for drawing games. What if draws had a score of zero (0), and losses a score of -1? (Wins would remain +1).
The standings in the recent Candidates Tournament would remain the same, but the point spreads would be markedly changed. Giri, with his 14 draws, finished only 1/2 point behind Anand and Caruana, who together played 10 decisive games!
Under the proposed system, Giri would have finished a full point behind them. Not to single out Giri, who was tied with three other players, all of whom were only 1-1/2 points behind the winner, Karjakin, who played 5 decisive games. Under the new system, they would have been full 3 points behind.
Not counting draws would force players to take more risks, fight for the win, and I believe, make for more exciting tournaments.
Chess would become more like scaling Mt. Everest, you can't make it to the top without taking a few risks!
As I recall, there were a number of Championship Matches in the past where draws didn't count. Capablanca vs. Laker comes to mind.
So, umm, someone should let you know, this changes nothing except to double the point spread. It will never change the winner or final placement. So it wouldn't be incentive to avoid draws or play for a win.
I was trying to think of a simple way to prove it... here's what I came up with. Notice the relationship is the same in both scoring systems:
2D = W+L
(two draws equal a win plus a loss)