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By International Master Jimmy Liew
Draw
to win
When I started competing in my first chess
tournament, I started reading up on the official rules of chess. There
is this article five on the completion of the game which states “The
game is drawn upon agreement between the two players during the
game”. Now that confused me no end. Why would anyone agree to a
draw? Don’t we play chess to try to checkmate and win? Are draws not
contrary to the spirit of the game?
And yet draw by agreement happens all the
time. In the recently concluded World Championship in Mexico City,
Anand became the newest World Champion by offering a draw on the 20th
move of his final round game and at the same time, pocketing a cool
USD390,000 in what could be his biggest paycheck in a long career. In
what other game or sport can you win the world championship by doing
this?
What if draw agreements can happen in other
sports or games , oh say tennis. I imagine Roger Federer (currently
the world number one tennis player) at Centre Court at Wimbledon
playing against Andy Roddick. In my imagination, they play a couple of
volleys and Federer saunters up to the net and the following
conversation takes place:
Federer:
Hot day isn’t it?
Roddick:
Yeah, hardly conducive to good tennis.
Federer:
Are you offering me a draw?
Roddick:
Are you trying to beat me?
Federer:
Nah, let’s call it a day.
Roddick:
OK, but you’re telling the referee of our draw.
Federer:
Why? What’s your hurry?
Roddick:
I want to get off the court before the spectators realize what’s
happening
and start throwing things at us.
And they would be within their rights too,
after all they are paying spectators.
Well, chess is not a paying spectator game. We
can catch any tournament live over the internet. But if you are like
me , staying up till 3:00 AM to follow the Mexico games, you will be
peeved too if half the games have finished within the hour and by move
twenty by mutual agreement. For chess to become popular, it needs to
attract plenty of big money sponsors. And sponsors only appear when
there is publicity to be had. And twenty move draws because the
players have other considerations beyond chess are not going to help
publicise the game. There have been some attempts to prevent premature
draws been agreed, the so called Sofia rules where draw offers were
expressly prohibited. Hopefully this rule will be more prominent
especially in the more important tournaments.
Draw?
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