Draws -- Know when to accept one!
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Do you want to post an example game of a situation where you are unhappy your opponent did not accept your repeated draw offers?
texaspete wrote: Do you want to post an example game of a situation where you are unhappy your opponent did not accept your repeated draw offers?
I wish I could but I can't. Basically, he had a rook and king stuck behind a wall of pawns that could not move and so did I. I mean literally not move because they were pushed up against each other, so the king was completely blocked and the rook could not get through. I should add that my rook was arranged on a file that separated the king from the bishop, and to break through with the rook would have meant trading it for a pawn. He had two pawn moves, one gave me a pawn for free, it was pointless. The other was starting in the same diagonal as his bishop, his only other non-pawn piece. My bishop was sitting on the same diagonal, so if he moved that pawn, he would lose his bishop, then he would also lose the pawn. Basically, we did a king dance forever because we both knew it was stuck. He literally had no positive way of progressing unless I caved and made a bad move. And of course, he would not accept a draw and otherwise just moved his king or shifted his bishop on the same diagonal. It was really silly.
With all due respect, if he was so severely limited in moves, why did you not move in a manner so the three move rule kicked in?
bigD521 wrote:
With all due respect, if he was so severely limited in moves, why did you not move in a manner so the three move rule kicked in?
He was moving his bishop along 3 squares and his king had at least 8, including me moving my king it isn't worth messing with that. He also only needed to move his rook a single square, which he did, for all of it to reset.
Mfran1616 wrote:
bigD521 wrote:
With all due respect, if he was so severely limited in moves, why did you not move in a manner so the three move rule kicked in?
He was moving his bishop along 3 squares and his king had at least 8, including me moving my king it isn't worth messing with that. He also only needed to move his rook a single square, which he did, for all of it to reset.
Thank you.
u should accept it cuz it's unethical to flag in my opinion
I can see where you’re coming from but your opponent was trying to tempt you into breaking the deadlock which is a fair tactic in my opinion, especially if you were running short on time, though of course a massively annoying one.
I’ve lost lots of dead drawn positions by either failing to bang out 50 moves in very little time or by being forced into constant pre-moves and my opponent gaming it and winning via the tactic of leaving a piece en prise and then taking off what it was next to the following move. Of course, this is always completely justified by my opponents as time is a massive part of the game!
It seems that all over this site and elsewhere are people who are saying "never accept a draw." While this may be good advice for new players learning the game, if you are 1600 or greater please consider learning various times when a draw is appropriate so that you don't waste other people's time or force them to make undesirable moves to appease you, or even consider resigning, because you won't accept a draw. For example, if you and your opponent are marching your king around in circles for the sake of making non-repeated moves while the next available move is undesirable for both of you and will lead to a clear disadvantage and pieces are even, and you are offered a draw over and over and you keep refusing, you are wasting someone's time who must decide to waste the next several minutes repeating such moves or forcing that person to make a less desirable move to appease you, or to simply resign the game because dealing with you is not worth it. At a certain ELO, like 1800 (less really), this behavior is completely inappropriate and unbecoming of the game. Please be very wary of advice telling you to never accept a draw, as this is not good advice for intermediate and greater players. Don't accept bad draw offers, just learn when it is pointless to proceed and you and your opponent are both being recalcitrant. Bad draw offers can happen at lower levels, but frankly draw offers at those levels are relatively uncommon all together. You don't accept one when the result still has some doubt, meaning there are moves to be played and the net effect of moving your pieces presents an opportunity for improvement in the result. For beginners, try to steadily improve and learn to know when a draw is proper and don't bank on playing to win in such a situation due to an opponent's blunder. The fallacy that happens is that you have reinforced behavior that seems rewarding to you--you played on and got a favorable result because someone did something to appease you or blundered, so you believe playing on is the right thing to do. So what happens is that you get to an advanced level and end up wasting people's time and forcing them into a situation where a draw is appropriate but you won't accept one. You need to try and avoid this type of thinking. Seriously though, look at any high level chess tournament among grandmasters and note how many times players agree to a draw--it happens a lot every tournament. So consider how accurate it is to "never accept a draw."