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The Draw Disease

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redchessman
Rasparovov wrote:

There are 3 different results. Win - draw - loss.
I dont see why 1/3 of all games being draws would be something special. 
Just look at Anand and imagine how he must feel. 

his draws aren't against class players.  I wouldn't complain if i was drawing 2700s lol.  

Edit:  I am not actually drawing 1400s (I only drew a 1400 once) its just every game goes into a drawish endgame and if i was playing as the 1400 i'd be able to draw it, but here are some of my troubling recent uscf statistics :  

1600: 12 wins 4 draw 2 loss 

1700: 7 wins 6 draws 3 loss

1800: 10 wins 3 draws 3 loss

1900: 1wins 10 draws 3 loss

2000:  0 wins 4 draw 7 losses ( this is my worst area; my rating is here so I try too hard to win and end up losing!)

2100: 2 wins 3 draws 4 losses

2200:  1 win 7 draws 4 losses

 

 

 

 



redchessman

This disease just doesn't go away...I go to a tournament and lose 0 games and still lose rating...

waffllemaster

It'd be interesting to see some of your wins.  What openings do you use?  Do you refuse to take risks or something?

redchessman

What usually happens is everygame i play a bunch of pieces come off the board and I always get better endgames.  It's just impossible to always convert those endgames so out of 6 times I only converted twice lol.

Endgames I couldn't convert were:  a pawn up endgame for me but opposite colored bishops, pawn up ending for me with only queens but his pawn was about to promote so i had to take a perpetual, same colored bishop and 5 pawns vs same colored bishop and 5 pawns where my opponents weakness was he had 1 pawn on the color of the bishop, but i cant exploit that and the last ending was dead equal rook endgame from exchange slav.   

 An annoying problem in the tournament was people played exchange slav on me to try to draw, so i'm probably going to look for different opening to play against lower rateds.

Endgames I converted: 4 pawns and 2 knights vs 3 pawns and bishop and knight, and an equal material queen and rook endgame where my opponent had horrible pawn structure.   

Edit: To put the tournament in perspective I am a higher end 2000 player and my opponents were 4 1950s and 2 1850s.  I kept playing down since i kept drawing. The Two games I won were against 1950s.

pdve

generally only very high rated players get draws.

Vilnius_Nstavic

Well, the best advice I can give you is… If you want to avoid the draw… put down the pencil.Laughing

grandmastergauri

be creative in the opening, try to create problems for the opponent always, that works usually :)

coalescenet

Maybe you are playing on extreme autopilot.   I used to do that when I was 1800-1900.  Then I learned to consistently calculate.  You need to fight for the advantage and always look for opportunities to gain the advantage.  Play openings that fight for the advantage, like the Queens gambit, if you play e4 then the Ruy Lopez. I used to play the London System but now I play the Queens gambit and I try to play as accurately as I can.  All that helped me improve after a long time of never really improving.

coalescenet

Opening-wise, I would personally take off b3 which clearly isn't the best way to fight in the opening.  Nf3 is okay but please don't transpose into a London :) 

I think d4 is the best option for you, sounds like it fits your style preference a bit better than e4.  A good line is the QGD exchange variation.