The Chess Mind

And it could have been worse. Smeets was winning against Jussupow, but undue caution when he should have hit the accelerator cost him a full point. Khalifman drew quickly with Negi and Beliavsky did well to split the point with Cheparinov, but the other two games were experiences the Experience team would like to forget. Ljubojevic was vaporized by Stellwagen in just 24 moves, and Karjakin won a more effortful game against Nikolic.

Round 4 results:

Smeets - Jussupow 0-1
Negi - Khalifman 1/2-1/2
Cheparinov - Beliavsky 1/2-1/2
Stellwagen - Ljubojevic 1-0
Karjakin - Nikolic 1-0

Overall score after round 4: Rising Stars 11.5-8.5

Games and reports are available on the tournament website. (Unfortunately, there aren't any direct links; one has to navigate for him- or herself. [Can any website experts tell me why they would to that?]) Here's a worthwhile excerpt from today's round report:

The shortest game of the round was the one between Parimarjan Negi and Alexander Khalifman that lasted almost 100 minutes and a mere 19 moves. One may argue that the young Indian wanted to avoid big risks after yesterday’s loss, and of course, Khalifman had the ‘excuse’ of playing with the black pieces, but it was clear from both players’ faces that they weren’t too proud of this ‘performance’. Khalifman joked, ‘So, it is becoming clear that I am the replacement of Ulf Andersson’, referring to peace-loving attitude of the Swede in last year’s NH Chess Tournament. ‘But you know what happened to Ulf’, quipped a bystander, ‘he wasn’t invited back!’

I'm a Khalifman fan, but I think the bystander is right. We don't need to adjust (read: ruin) the game's rules or scoring system. It's quite simple: when it's an invitational tournament, a player who persistently plays for short draws should be thanked for his time and not invited back for at least a year. (Note the modifier persistently. There are occasions when a short draw is acceptable - to bounce back after a loss or series of losses, to consolidate a tournament lead or in pursuit of a norm, or if it's the logical conclusion of an opening line that couldn't have been easily foreseen in advance. This anti-draw policy must be intelligently enacted, but if it is, it's fair. If an organizer is spending money on the player, the player should return value to the organizer.