Sofia Rule options in chess.com

Hi all,

Recently I followed world chess championship and one thing I'm particularly amazed is how sofia rule can absorb energy from every player and make the chess much more exciting.

For me 50-move draw was much more exciting than 25-30 move draw.

I was wondering whether it is possible to include sofia rules (as an option) in some of the chess played in chess.com like CC, live chess, tournament.

Of course I can always self impose the sofia rule, but it will be really exciting for me if I participate tournaments with sofia rule.

I would like to hear about this from fellow members of chess.com

it is incredible how you can think that those silly rules made this WCC exciting. Its the players!

I personally and emotionalyy support Anand. I all the way go against topalov.

However, onething that could not be taken away from topalov is sofia rule. It has different impact on tournament games. However it drains energy of both the player in WCC. The average number of moves per game is much higher in 2010 WCC compared to anyother WCC. From normal chess enthusiastic it is exciting to see a technical draw, rather than quick agrred draw

I'm for Topalov, and the "Sofia rules" did make it exciting. All World Championships should be "Sofia rules"!

I don't see how much use it will have for a correspondence/live game where I can ALREADY

a) Not offer draws.

b) Ignore my opponent's draw offers

Accepting some "contractual" obligation that I will never offer a draw is silly unless you're playing a 4-5 hour game online which actually test your stamina. Now what %age of Chess.com live games even go that distance? 

Actually, the Sofia rules, self imposed by Topalov did in fact affect the results of the last WCC. I believe it was Game 8 that was considered a draw by most GMs after move 25 (and chess.com abandoned the broadcast), but Topalov still pressed, and won this game, after Anand blundered...probably due to fatigue. This was indeed a good strategy by Topalov to put added pressure on his older opponent.

Such a strategy can work OTB.

I agree. The number of draws are really very small for me.

Thats true. Thats true for last game as well. Thats what makes much more interesting for chess followers.

The sofia rule doesn't say anything about minimum number of moves. However 3-time position repeat and 50 moves without capturing / moving pawn etc are considered as draw. I know in CC, you can "Claim draw" (instead of offer draw) in chess.com for 3-time position repeat.

One can always repeat the position and claim the draw unless the opponent is really nuts. If opponent is really nuts draw by agreement may not happen at all. What the sofia rule will impose is make the players to find repeating position and that is not easy in an unbalanced position like Queen Vs 2 Rooks.

Agreed. Also finding a repeating position in the opening phase is also difficult. This will avoid intentional draw by the players, like what russian players did to Bobby Fischer.