The Draw Offer

There are three results in chess: Win, lose, or draw. Today, however, I'm gonna focus on one result: the draw. Over the years, I have grown sick of draws. In this post I'll tell you why.

Draws occur in a few ways. Either the character of the position is completely simplified, or one side has no legal moves and is NOT in checkmate (this is called stalemate). However, too many times, games end prematurely because of the draw offer. In most tournaments, at any point during the game, a player can offer his/her opponent a draw, a peace offering if you will, and split the point. The game ends immediately if the opponent accepts the draw offer, and thats that.

Too many times in big open (cash) tournaments, in the last round, tournament leaders offer each other draws, to preserve their place in the standings. While this does ensure themselves a share of the winnings, it hurts the sporting nature of the royal game. Chess is supposed to be fighting and exciting right to the end. When you have premature draws, you often have the audience asking, "why did it end?" If chess is ever to attract serious corporate sponsorship and universal appeal, most draw offers need to be eliminated.

Draw offers don't just occur in the last round of big tournaments. In most tournaments, there will always be draws. So why do people offer draws? Sometimes, if in serious time trouble, opponents are reluctant to play on even if they have a strategic advantage because they're afraid they'll lose on time or make a critical blunder. In other instances, a player will make a draw because he/she has a lower rating than their opponent, and feels that a draw is a good result.

Here's my question: If one continues to make/accept draws, how will that person ever learn to deal with critical situations like time trouble, tough opponent, etc... If a chess player wants to truly develop their game, they should play out every position. Does a basketball game stop because the score is tied with 5 minutes to go? Perhaps even more appropriately, does a soccer game end because its 0-0 (nil-nil) with 20 minutes left? Even if a game seems to be steering towards a tie/draw, play it out! More often than not, I have actually found that miraculous things happen in dead drawn positions. Moral of story: short draws=bad, playing it out till the end=good.

By the way, this picture is from the World Open in July of 2010. The World Open is one of the strongest open tournaments in the United States. The funny thing is, at this tournament I had four draws from nine games. But guess what? Those draws were hard fought games.