Tiemore Drawjabov

There has been much talk about the draw death of classical chess, but recently Radjabov managed a surprising feat. He drew 15 (!) games in a row in the ongoing rapid tournament. It's not as if it is some total fluke thing either, in his previous rapid event (which he won) he scored 13 draws in a row. 

It should be difficult to draw so many games with shorter time controls. Maybe part of the explanation is the format, where all that matters is to finish in the top half of the field, and also some other players are far from unhappy to draw, some in few moves. Aronian drew one in nine moves, Ding drew one in eleven. But still most of their games were decisive. Going two events in a row with more than a dozen draws in a row in rapid chess is impressive :-)

Absolutely. He's an artist!

Radjabov has been doing great in these events, but it is still amazing how he can score so many draws in rapid. 39 of his last 45! That is 87%. But only two losses over those 45 games, and he isn't far from winning also this event, having reached the semi.

It's not really a general tendency for these events either, for example semi finalists Carlsen and So both have 9  draws in 21 in rapid in the Opera tournament (43% draws).

Then of course Radjabov went and destroyed his stats with three decisive in a row...

And just to really rub it in he then finished the event with five decisive in a row.