Speaking as a fan of Test cricket, in which matches can last five entire days and still end in a draw, I'm fine with draws. It means both teams/players are evenly matched. That happens. The idea...
Speaking as a fan of Test cricket, in which matches can last five entire days and still end in a draw, I'm fine with draws. It means both teams/players are evenly matched. That happens. The idea that someone has to be a winner seems rather.. well... childish to me.
Funnily enough I was having a relevant discussion on this topic last night. Not chess, but cricket - among many cricket fans Test cricket is considered the highest form of the game - it's long, complicated, extremely strategic and to less-involved fans, often boring and disappointing. Not just a match can end in a draw, but an entire multi-month-long series can not have a winner. So new forms of the game are being invented, which are faster, shorter and harder to draw. These things like 20/20 and the Hundred are fine. They're fun, they get people into the sport who otherwise might not be into it but the important thing is they're fundamentally different from the long game. Same for chess. Want to add in extra rules to make the game more exciting for people who don't like draws? Fine. But it should be separate from the elite form of the game.
The thing is, it seems to me that a draw is a perfectly legitimate outcome in any sport or game. Sometimes players battle for a match lasting (I dunno, days? my only experience of competitive chess is The Queens Gambit) and there just isn't a clear winner. Life doesn't always have a winner and I'm pretty sure that like all sports, the highest chess players would say the game is a reflection of life.
According to Chessbase, 53% of chess matches ends in draw. That is too much even for a soccer fan. And a draw in chess doesn't happen in the same way as other sports. I personally find it less...
According to Chessbase, 53% of chess matches ends in draw. That is too much even for a soccer fan. And a draw in chess doesn't happen in the same way as other sports. I personally find it less satisfying. Besides, the article was written by a chess Grandmaster, and references articles from another GM. Those are highly experienced players that are at the topmost group of the sport. I doubt very much they have childish views about chess...
I don't know about football. But I don't think the actual number matters. If the teams/players are evenly matched, they're evenly matched. If, in the case of cricket, rain stops play, rain stops...
I don't know about football. But I don't think the actual number matters. If the teams/players are evenly matched, they're evenly matched. If, in the case of cricket, rain stops play, rain stops play. It's life. 53% or 5% doesn't matter, that's how it goes.
Also my opinion is that insisting on every match having a winner every time is a bit childish. I don't see any reason why merely being good at playing chess would mean someone can't act in a way I find childish. I suspect they may be rather more informed than me about what is good for the game of chess in a broader sense, but that won't really change my opinion about draws in sport in general.
If fans don't like draws then, much like they did with cricket - why not introduce a more fun form of chess entirely? Add extra queens as the match goes on. Let people move twice a turn. Have enforced speed rounds. Add some strobe lights and banging tunes.
The difference is that at very high level chess, the margin that a games goes to a draw is very high (at the very highest levels, which is chess AIs fighting each other, it can be as high as 80%+...
The difference is that at very high level chess, the margin that a games goes to a draw is very high (at the very highest levels, which is chess AIs fighting each other, it can be as high as 80%+ draws).
It would be like if in football (soccer), the rules were such that if you didn't have a 3 goal lead over your opponent, it's a draw. The majority of football games would end in a draw. If you're down 0-1 in goals, you can just play completely defensively so that the game ends in a draw. Even if you're 2-0, if the enemy team can prevent you from getting another goal it'll end in a draw.
When you tune into the premiere league, the most likely situation is that both teams end in a draw. That's would be the situation.
I personally don't think draws should be removed from chess, but I do think they should be less frequent. Besides, chess' definition of draw is not like other sports. A draw occurs when one side...
I personally don't think draws should be removed from chess, but I do think they should be less frequent. Besides, chess' definition of draw is not like other sports. A draw occurs when one side cannot mate the other. This is not very satisfying, and is confusing for many in the audience. Skilled players often force draws when that is advantageous for them. This is made worse by the fact that draws are worth 0.5 points while wins are worth 1 point. In soccer, for example, a win is 3 and a tie is 1. So there's more incentive for offensive play, and less circumstances in which one should play for a draw.
EDIT: very important can't believe I forgot this: if the players agree to a draw, a draw will occur regardless of the state of the game...
In chess the problem is that converting an advantage is hard. So players will often give in to a draw at the end. Additionally, there's an issue where players play into known draws to avoid...
In chess the problem is that converting an advantage is hard. So players will often give in to a draw at the end. Additionally, there's an issue where players play into known draws to avoid playing chess and conserve energy. For draws to feel satisfying, it has to feel like the game is balanced on the edge of a knife; in chess it feels like a compromise, and I think that most of the top players agreeing that this is an issue and not a benefit speaks a great deal.
Games like (certain versions of) Go, Hex, and Tumbleweed don't have this issue and have comparable or more complexity than chess.
Speaking of that, there's this fascinating paper put out by DeepMind where they use AlphaZero, which is completely bootstrapped by self play (i.e no training on player games), to experiment with...
Speaking of that, there's this fascinating paper put out by DeepMind where they use AlphaZero, which is completely bootstrapped by self play (i.e no training on player games), to experiment with different rulesets in Chess, some which aim to mitigate draws: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.04374.pdf
Probably worth getting @Deimos to help with this one, if that's the way the community feels. All of our tags with chess are currently found in ~games.tabletop. And there's a lot of them! I'd do it...
Probably worth getting @Deimos to help with this one, if that's the way the community feels. All of our tags with chess are currently found in ~games.tabletop. And there's a lot of them!
I'd do it manually, but that's a fair amount of work. And if I remember correctly, he's able to move things wholesale with a few clicks behind the scenes.
Yes, chess could be in either group. However, I believe there are more posts about chess as a sport ("Magnus Carlsen lost the World Championship!") than as a casual activity ("How can I beat my...
Yes, chess could be in either group. However, I believe there are more posts about chess as a sport ("Magnus Carlsen lost the World Championship!") than as a casual activity ("How can I beat my father at chess?"). Thanks for taking the time to answer me!
Just to give an idea of how this works in practice, in the 2018 World Chess Championship (which is a set of games between the current winner and the winner of a classificatory tournament), Magnus...
Just to give an idea of how this works in practice, in the 2018 World Chess Championship (which is a set of games between the current winner and the winner of a classificatory tournament), Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana drawed for all the12 classic matches!. FIDE had to resort to rapid matches to settle the dispute, which Carlsen finally won, successfully defending the title.
Speaking as a fan of Test cricket, in which matches can last five entire days and still end in a draw, I'm fine with draws. It means both teams/players are evenly matched. That happens. The idea that someone has to be a winner seems rather.. well... childish to me.
Funnily enough I was having a relevant discussion on this topic last night. Not chess, but cricket - among many cricket fans Test cricket is considered the highest form of the game - it's long, complicated, extremely strategic and to less-involved fans, often boring and disappointing. Not just a match can end in a draw, but an entire multi-month-long series can not have a winner. So new forms of the game are being invented, which are faster, shorter and harder to draw. These things like 20/20 and the Hundred are fine. They're fun, they get people into the sport who otherwise might not be into it but the important thing is they're fundamentally different from the long game. Same for chess. Want to add in extra rules to make the game more exciting for people who don't like draws? Fine. But it should be separate from the elite form of the game.
The thing is, it seems to me that a draw is a perfectly legitimate outcome in any sport or game. Sometimes players battle for a match lasting (I dunno, days? my only experience of competitive chess is The Queens Gambit) and there just isn't a clear winner. Life doesn't always have a winner and I'm pretty sure that like all sports, the highest chess players would say the game is a reflection of life.
According to Chessbase, 53% of chess matches ends in draw. That is too much even for a soccer fan. And a draw in chess doesn't happen in the same way as other sports. I personally find it less satisfying. Besides, the article was written by a chess Grandmaster, and references articles from another GM. Those are highly experienced players that are at the topmost group of the sport. I doubt very much they have childish views about chess...
I don't know about football. But I don't think the actual number matters. If the teams/players are evenly matched, they're evenly matched. If, in the case of cricket, rain stops play, rain stops play. It's life. 53% or 5% doesn't matter, that's how it goes.
Also my opinion is that insisting on every match having a winner every time is a bit childish. I don't see any reason why merely being good at playing chess would mean someone can't act in a way I find childish. I suspect they may be rather more informed than me about what is good for the game of chess in a broader sense, but that won't really change my opinion about draws in sport in general.
If fans don't like draws then, much like they did with cricket - why not introduce a more fun form of chess entirely? Add extra queens as the match goes on. Let people move twice a turn. Have enforced speed rounds. Add some strobe lights and banging tunes.
The difference is that at very high level chess, the margin that a games goes to a draw is very high (at the very highest levels, which is chess AIs fighting each other, it can be as high as 80%+ draws).
It would be like if in football (soccer), the rules were such that if you didn't have a 3 goal lead over your opponent, it's a draw. The majority of football games would end in a draw. If you're down 0-1 in goals, you can just play completely defensively so that the game ends in a draw. Even if you're 2-0, if the enemy team can prevent you from getting another goal it'll end in a draw.
When you tune into the premiere league, the most likely situation is that both teams end in a draw. That's would be the situation.
I personally don't think draws should be removed from chess, but I do think they should be less frequent. Besides, chess' definition of draw is not like other sports. A draw occurs when one side cannot mate the other. This is not very satisfying, and is confusing for many in the audience. Skilled players often force draws when that is advantageous for them. This is made worse by the fact that draws are worth 0.5 points while wins are worth 1 point. In soccer, for example, a win is 3 and a tie is 1. So there's more incentive for offensive play, and less circumstances in which one should play for a draw.
EDIT: very important can't believe I forgot this: if the players agree to a draw, a draw will occur regardless of the state of the game...
Flashbacks to how Barry Hearn tried to spice up snooker with dry ice and entry music, à la darts.
In chess the problem is that converting an advantage is hard. So players will often give in to a draw at the end. Additionally, there's an issue where players play into known draws to avoid playing chess and conserve energy. For draws to feel satisfying, it has to feel like the game is balanced on the edge of a knife; in chess it feels like a compromise, and I think that most of the top players agreeing that this is an issue and not a benefit speaks a great deal.
Games like (certain versions of) Go, Hex, and Tumbleweed don't have this issue and have comparable or more complexity than chess.
Speaking of that, there's this fascinating paper put out by DeepMind where they use AlphaZero, which is completely bootstrapped by self play (i.e no training on player games), to experiment with different rulesets in Chess, some which aim to mitigate draws: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.04374.pdf
Draws are boring and unsatisfying. In chess, they're extremely common.
@mycketforvirrad, I see that you moved this to tabletop. Maybe this should be in ~sports? Professional chess is generally considered a sport. Thanks!
Probably worth getting @Deimos to help with this one, if that's the way the community feels. All of our tags with
chessare currently found in ~games.tabletop. And there's a lot of them!I'd do it manually, but that's a fair amount of work. And if I remember correctly, he's able to move things wholesale with a few clicks behind the scenes.
Yes, chess could be in either group. However, I believe there are more posts about chess as a sport ("Magnus Carlsen lost the World Championship!") than as a casual activity ("How can I beat my father at chess?"). Thanks for taking the time to answer me!
Just to give an idea of how this works in practice, in the 2018 World Chess Championship (which is a set of games between the current winner and the winner of a classificatory tournament), Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana drawed for all the12 classic matches!. FIDE had to resort to rapid matches to settle the dispute, which Carlsen finally won, successfully defending the title.