I could care less. All this talk of changing the scoring rules to appease spectators desirous of a win is... ?

When the public loses interest; the GM'S; if they don't see the light will find themselves out of "work". They will have choices to make. Should the public make those choices by altering scoring values in an attempt to influence their play?

I agree with everything you say Lasker. However; they are the professionals and if they play to draw it is their right. Paramount is protecting their rating. If they cut their own throats a few may wake up and "crush" all comers! ... or at least go down in a blaze of glory.

The public's appetite for a victory is not well suited for chess where a draw is the logical outcome. Attempts to alter the rules and "force" players to play differently simply does not work. Chess may never find a huge sponsor. Just the nature of the beast. I still believe a very clever marketing idea would work.

lol

The Sinquefield Cup was full of good games this year. I thought it was really enjoyable, with the explanations of Yasser, Jen and Maurice. Even draws can be interesting when they are explained in a lively and entertaining fashion.

I believe it's the right way to promote chess. But it's true I'd like to see less draws sometimes, and as above mentioned GMs will try to protect their rating even if that means no points in the tournament. I don't know if there is a solution for that. It's an interesting question nonetheless.

petrosianpupil wrote:

It's good to encourage super GM's to play for the win. Players like Giri should be penalised for their lack of adventure and Nakamura rewarded. Fight till the bare kings like Carlsen, Fisher and Kasparov be worthy of the super GM tag

The master of going undefeated; Pretrosian was therefore unworthy of his GM title because he rarely lost? He puts Giri at the back of the bus when it comes to drawing.

The issue is not the result, the issue is the way it is achieved. For example the 9 move draw between Mcshane and Nakamura was not a fighting draw, however Giri-Ding (from Bilbao) was. 

Many sports face the same problem - the tension between players simply wanting to get the best result, and broadcasters wanting to make it entertaining to spectators. We quite frequently see rules tweaked to promote more 'action' / excitement.

I don't know enough about chess to suggest what could be tried, although the wider inclusion of blitz/bullet seems to be quite popular.

In several ways I admire Giri... he says "beat me". If you so much as make an inaccuracy, I will pounce and secure the point. Otherwise, I'm as good as you until you prove otherwise. At a very early age he has mastered the art of defence. Just maybe he will learn the art of attack and evolve into an exciting player to watch.

The rules state that one gets 1 point for a win and 1/2 point for a draw. If the player is willing to get 1/2 that is his prerogative. If the majority want something else. Let's all advocate that a draw should be 1/3 of a point instead. That way you will invite superGM's to play to win. Until then I totally agree with any playing style Giri wants to play. Needless to say if he is in the top10 of the world at his age he is doing something right. What did he do wrong exactly?

Im ok with the scoring chance, as i think it will prod some to try harder for a win.  What i am against is changing the game simply to make it more appealing to spectators.  Either youre into chess or your not.  Quit trying to change the game to make it more "exciting"  The game is fine the way it is.

The problem isnt chess ,its, as studies have shown, peoples attention spans are getting shorter.

What it is... the sponsorship, promotion, marketing of chess seems to be based on a winner/loser. As if this is the only satisfying result. However, a draw is the logical conclusion in games with GM's. The "public" wants to change this by imposing new scoring or move regulations to satisfy their hunger of a victor. Chess needs a fresh marketing idea not based on a winner/loser but that of ?

There's chess the game and chess the sport. Accomodations are always made and experiments often occur.  Look at the problem of time.  In the premodern era, there were no time limits at all. Then we had time limits with adjournments.  Now we tend to have blitz matches as playoffs because a daily break allows for use of computers.  You can always argue about which changes are sensible and which foolish.  But I don't think it's crazy for a sponsor to say Ok, if you want to play in this tournament I've arranged, you'll accept incentives that penalize draws.

Their ratings are still calculated the regular way but the sponsor can give out tournament prizes as he sees fit.  That includes rewarding those who win more over those with equal scores who get to the same (traditional) score with draws.

This is surely just a formalization of the usual thing where a sponsor might not invite one top player because he's too drawish while preferring a lower-rated master who plays more riskily and those delights the crowd.

One argument against increasing points for a win goes thusly... I cannot allow a win to my opponent and give away so many points... therefor I will play safely and secure the draw when offorded. Games cannot be won by force, no matter how hard you try and the extra $ incentive, unless your opponent makes a mistake.

The way to reduce draws isn't to change the scoring in a Super GM event, the way to reduce draws is to invite a lesser GM or two to play in the event too. This is the solution that Wijk aan Zee and the British Chess Classic have opted for. They invite a local GM who would never qualify for such an event based on his or her ratings. 

The effect of having one or two fish (and in this sense, fish is relative) in a tournament like this is to force the top players to go for the win against them. Inevitably, one or two won't get the free win, and will have to play harder to catch up to the others. This creates even more fighting chess than is normal for these top players. 

But the Candidates tournaments have shown that all this crying over draws in chess is just noise. The elite players go for wins anyway, and don't draw that many games. 

Take a look at the cross table for the last Candidates' event. There were 22 decisive games and 34 draws. Almost all of the games were hard fought and exciting. There's no need to fret over draws.

I wasn't saying it was a good reason.  But organizers are the ones who pay the bills.  They will try whatever they wish to try unless you can convince them that your solution is better.  Inviting lesser ranked players lowers the average rating which hurts the marketing of the tournament.

Pode botar uma pra mim

Nothing, if the games are interesting

ugh. i want 4 games to end with a positive result!

If all the GM`s are gonna do is draw their games, what is the point to watching human players? The Chess playing engines play at a much higher level than even the world champion and they still win games against the other top engines. In that case, I would just as soon watch engine matches. Actually, that is also one of my hobbies. It's amazing, the depth of the game when engines rated 200 points higher than any human can be beaten. The difference of ability between the top engines and the best GM`s is so significant that the GM`s openly admit it's totally no contest and won't even play a match against any top engine, not even for money. The purists say, don't speed up the game, that would degrade the game of Chess with too many errors. It's becoming increasingly apparent to me, that if you want more win/loss results the time control for professional Chess needs to be shortened to what is now known as rapid play, or about 20 minutes a side. Everyone disagrees with this but name another solution besides Fischer Random, which most people don't like either.