5 ms·
Top-level chess leads to draws because of how points are awarded, not because of the rules. Yes, sometimes you just run out of material, but much of the time dr
by light_hue_1 5y ago
Top-level chess leads to draws because of how points are awarded, not because of the rules. Yes, sometimes you just run out of material, but much of the time draws happen because players shut down the game or agree to a draw in a position that is just too dangerous to both parties. Chess rewards draws with far too many points.
If you could agree to a draw in tennis, you would see a lot of draws where players want to save their energy and don't think this match counts that much.
In other sports players don't play for draws. In chess, because draws are worth so much, some players will try to draw with black and win with white. If chess were more combative players would intentionally stay away from drawish lines.
Many ways to change the game have been put forward before. Including banning draws in positions that are not known to be draws from a table base, changing how many points you get for a draw (you could get less than 1/2), forbidding early draws, changing what happens if a tournament is drawn.
These kinds of rule changes make a big difference. Like, 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw. Now, you can't comfortably sit as black and bank a lot of draws because you won't be able to as easily catch up.
Rules for draws in tournaments are really absurd these days. A drawn classical tournament or even the world championship gets decided by rapid games. What's the point in playing classical if you win by playing rapid? The world championship is particularly problematic in this regard.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y agothe draw problem isn't entirely human. computers draw something like 80% of games even with openings specifically chosen to reduced the number of draws.
- snovv_crash 5y agoBut it's that because we optimize the algorithms under the same ruleset? I imagine if a draw was counted as a loss to both sides, there would be a lot more aggressive plays, since just stonewalling a skilled opponent would be the same as losing.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y agolc0 has had bets trained where draws are a loss. it doesn't change much
- light_hue_1 5y agoHumans and machines draw for totally different reasons. Machines don't have any concept of a tournament. Humans go into drawn lines and get rid of tension in order to play the tournament meta-game. Since draws are worth so much, it's often a good idea to just bail out with a draw. A lot of human positions wouldn't be drawn by machines, they would keep hammering the opponent.
- chongli 5y agoThis seems great in theory but it doesn’t address the time when people complain the most about draws in chess: the world championship match. There, no matter how little you award for draws, one single win can be decisive and so the games can be very dry until one player breaks.
- Raidion 5y agoYou'd have to make the points awarded differ with white vs black. World champs wouldn't have been a lot different other than it would end earlier. If you lose a game, you need to win a game to be even. That doesn't change even if you make it 100 points for a win. It would impact multi person events more, but not incredibly. I think some interesting options are things like .7 for draw and 1.2 for win as black. Other options are to make 3 move repetitions illegal (now they're a kind of zugzwang). Last option that I like would be to add a time penalty for drawing in future matches. I think chess needs to become less even, and you could do that in interesting ways if you were willing to mess with the time (or even who moves first) in future matches. Incentives to win now (vs maybe win later) should reward aggressive play early in tournaments and make players who are falling behind more incentivized to fight mid tourney.