A Problem with Draws
I recall promising not to address this topic anymore, but what I wish to say in this post goes in a completely different direction than the usual laments. There won't be any complaint about short draws, prearranged draws or spectator disappointment at the lack of an outright winner. Instead, I'll tell a little story with the moral at the end.
The year was 1985, and an ambitious teenager (me) was regularly taking the trip from Las Vegas to southern California to get in some games against strong opposition at Labate's Chess Center. Back then I worked the graveyard shift, and after working all night I drove to Anaheim and was paired with IM Kamran Shirazi in the first round. After a surprisingly easy win, my reward was Black against GM Larry Christiansen. Despite playing the seedy Hennig-Schara Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 cxd4?!/?) I obtained tons of play for my pawn. Christiansen cleverly sacrificed a piece to take the initiative over, and after a while I returned it (or he won it back). The end result of all our running around was an endgame with matched material and a symmetrical structure, and a draw was agreed.
Needless to say, this was a thrilling day for me. Despite having been up for over 30 hours in a row (I don't recommend that anyone follow my example, and I hasten to add that my drive to California occurred when I had plenty of sleep) I had beaten my first IM and drawn my first GM - and comfortably! Here's where it gets interesting, though: we had a post-mortem. While it was a complicated game, I felt through most of the game and especially at the end as if I had a pretty good idea of what was going on.
As Christiansen started ripping through variations, however, the picture changed dramatically. It's not so much that I miscalculated - I don't recall having messed up any of the variations I examined during the game. No, the problem was that I saw almost nothing compared to him! Idea after idea poured out of my esteemed opponent, and after a few minutes of this I wondered how I drew with this being, who was clearly of a different species than me.
Of course, I've been on the Christiansen side of things too, where I drew a lower-rated player who seemed not to see anything during the game, but managed to draw just the same. And I bet most if not all of you have had the same experience, too. Of course, different players have different strengths. Christiansen is an exceptionally imaginative tactician even among grandmasters and undoubtedly finds brilliant ideas they overlook, too. But in the case of the 1985 editions of Mssrs. Christiansen and Monokroussos, it's not likely that there was any respect in which the latter player outshined his opponent.
The punchline, then, is this: it's a pity, perhaps, that one player can so outclass another and still not be able to win a game of chess. In the long run, his superiority will show, so maybe it's not that big a problem, and it's also not clear that there's any way to fix the problem without killing the patient (the game as we know it). I wouldn't describe this as the "draw death" of chess, but it does seem that the drawing margin is very large. Another possible diagnosis - a more optimistic one - is that much of chess skill is tacit knowledge. A player simply learns where the pieces go, and that feeling enables a player not to completely escape from tactical dangers and the need to calculate like a chess engine, but to go pretty far in that direction.
Two final comments. First, while it may be a pity that I was able to draw that game despite the great difference in strength, I don't have even the slightest regret about the result.
And second, a postscript. After defeating an IM and drawing a GM with no sleep, you'd imagine that defeating an expert the next day with lots of sleep would be a cinch. Nope! I only drew in round 3, but finished well with a win over a master in round 4, coming in second or third. (Christiansen won with 3.5/4, I think, and he might have been tied with one other player - I don't remember.)
The year was 1985, and an ambitious teenager (me) was regularly taking the trip from Las Vegas to southern California to get in some games against strong opposition at Labate's Chess Center. Back then I worked the graveyard shift, and after working all night I drove to Anaheim and was paired with IM Kamran Shirazi in the first round. After a surprisingly easy win, my reward was Black against GM Larry Christiansen. Despite playing the seedy Hennig-Schara Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 cxd4?!/?) I obtained tons of play for my pawn. Christiansen cleverly sacrificed a piece to take the initiative over, and after a while I returned it (or he won it back). The end result of all our running around was an endgame with matched material and a symmetrical structure, and a draw was agreed.
Needless to say, this was a thrilling day for me. Despite having been up for over 30 hours in a row (I don't recommend that anyone follow my example, and I hasten to add that my drive to California occurred when I had plenty of sleep) I had beaten my first IM and drawn my first GM - and comfortably! Here's where it gets interesting, though: we had a post-mortem. While it was a complicated game, I felt through most of the game and especially at the end as if I had a pretty good idea of what was going on.
As Christiansen started ripping through variations, however, the picture changed dramatically. It's not so much that I miscalculated - I don't recall having messed up any of the variations I examined during the game. No, the problem was that I saw almost nothing compared to him! Idea after idea poured out of my esteemed opponent, and after a few minutes of this I wondered how I drew with this being, who was clearly of a different species than me.
Of course, I've been on the Christiansen side of things too, where I drew a lower-rated player who seemed not to see anything during the game, but managed to draw just the same. And I bet most if not all of you have had the same experience, too. Of course, different players have different strengths. Christiansen is an exceptionally imaginative tactician even among grandmasters and undoubtedly finds brilliant ideas they overlook, too. But in the case of the 1985 editions of Mssrs. Christiansen and Monokroussos, it's not likely that there was any respect in which the latter player outshined his opponent.
The punchline, then, is this: it's a pity, perhaps, that one player can so outclass another and still not be able to win a game of chess. In the long run, his superiority will show, so maybe it's not that big a problem, and it's also not clear that there's any way to fix the problem without killing the patient (the game as we know it). I wouldn't describe this as the "draw death" of chess, but it does seem that the drawing margin is very large. Another possible diagnosis - a more optimistic one - is that much of chess skill is tacit knowledge. A player simply learns where the pieces go, and that feeling enables a player not to completely escape from tactical dangers and the need to calculate like a chess engine, but to go pretty far in that direction.
Two final comments. First, while it may be a pity that I was able to draw that game despite the great difference in strength, I don't have even the slightest regret about the result.
And second, a postscript. After defeating an IM and drawing a GM with no sleep, you'd imagine that defeating an expert the next day with lots of sleep would be a cinch. Nope! I only drew in round 3, but finished well with a win over a master in round 4, coming in second or third. (Christiansen won with 3.5/4, I think, and he might have been tied with one other player - I don't remember.)