The Chess Mind

Based on the "day off" the Russian Championship participants enjoyed in round 4, I assumed the players weren't using the so-called "Sofia rules". After all, five of the six games were drawn quickly: two in 14 moves, two in 25 moves, and one made it all the way to move 30 before the point was split. And yet, it turns out that the Sofia "rules" are in effect*!

So, boys and girls, if you want to take a day off but those pesky arbiters want to force you to play, you can use

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.dxe5 Nxb5 7.a4 Nbd4 8.Nxd4 Nxd4 9.Qxd4 d5 10.exd6 Qxd6 11.Qe4+ Qe6 12.Qd4 Qd6 13.Qe4+ Qe6 14.Qd4 Qd6 (Inarkiev-Jakovenko)

or

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 Re8 10.d4 Bb7 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3 Re8 13.Ng5 Rf8 14.Nf3 (Lastin-Svidler; this one is already very well-known and has been used hundreds if not thousands of times over the past two decades.)

or just make some moves, and when you feel you've put on a good show, simply create your own repetition, as occurred in the games Morozevich-Timofeev, Tomashevsky-Alekseev and Maslak-Sakaev.

As a matter of principle, anti-draw rules are rarely needed; as a matter of fact, they don't work. It's pretty easy for player 1 to drop a hint or throw out a trial balloon to player 2 before a game to see if he's up for a draw (or maybe down for a draw, depending on your perspective), and then any competent players can make it happen. And even in a "real" game, when the players believe it's an inevitable draw, player one can make a silly but non-self-destructive repetition and do the job that way. Player 2 can decline it, but that's not much different from a normal draw offer situation.

Further, since I think there's nothing wrong with a player taking a short draw from time to time (sometimes one is sick or especially tired, or wants to get a painful loss or two out of his system, or in bad form and eager to get the event over (like Anand at the Grand Slam final), or needs only a draw to help clinch a norm or the desired place in the tournament), there's yet another reason to reject the Sofia rules.

So three cheers to the players in the Russian Championship. They've played four great rounds out of the five, which is a higher percentage than you'll see in most tournaments, and when they wanted to take a well-deserved day off, they did it, and made a mockery of a stupid rule in the process. Good for them.

* HT: Chess Today

GM Manuel Rivas was disqualified from the ongoing Spanish Championship when he refused to submit to a doping test. (As reported here; translation here.) Now, perhaps at some point there will be a substance that (a) substantially helps the performance of a chess player and (b) is dangerous and needs to be controlled, but in the meantime, what's the point? This stupid FIDE rule, which as far as I know had never previously been enforced, goes back to 1999 when FIDE had some hopes of becoming part of the Olympic movement. Since that didn't work out (chess was an exhibition sport in the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and that was the end of that), can we stop pretending chess is a real sport - or at least the sort of sport where these blood tests are relevant?

HT: Chess Today