Charlie strikes again,
but treatments seem to be working

7/27/2004.  Here is the latest visit of my Patient Charlie. Please read his chart before continuing.

Charlie's email :
love your reply. it is so much fun.

But I will have to repeat myself until it sinks into your head. the
problem we are trying to solve is BORING DRAWS. we are not trying to
solve the problem of exciting draws. I never said all draws are boring.
just almost all of them.

do chess fans have to go through watching a hundred boring draws just to
witness one exciting draw???

now let me ask you a question. let us say all the same moves were made in
your 2 games. but the rules said that there had to be a winner. so the
fight continued and one was declared a winner and one a loser. do you
want to say that would have been boring. of course not. the excitement
would have been for even more moves. and the fans would have known one to
live and one to die. just like the roman gladiators. blood and fight.
exciting sports action.

Soon the Olympics will be played. how many boring draws will they have.
NONE. not a one.

take Lance Armstrong. the Tour de France winner. NO BORING DRAWS THERE.

Please hangin' tell us all what other sport wallows in BORING DRAWS.

the national football league used to have ties or draws. and THEY GOT RID
OF THEM AND THE FANS LOVE IT. I am not a big sports fan. I am a chess
fan. but maybe other sports have done the same. found a way to get rid
of BORING DRAWS.

They call it SUDDEN DEATH. ah life and death the eternal struggle. that
is stuff that makes great sports.

Remember Hangin' there are only 2 words in BORING DRAWS. so the solution
has to be to work on one of those words. to work on the Boring or the
Draws. I have not seen you eliminate the boring draws. but I guarantee
that if the rules are changed so there are NO DRAWS. I guarantee there
will be no BORING DRAWS. in fact that is obvious.

your argument is that in 1962 there was an exciting draw. and then
another one popped up 42 years later in 2004. wow. the next exciting
draw is due in 2046. Sorry Hangin' I don't know about you but I will be
dead by then. and you want all chess fans to suffer through the next
million BORING DRAWS waiting for the year 2046. come Hangin' have some
compassion on Chess fans.

Charlie

Hangin's take:

    Charlie, the treatments are working. I am glad that you agree now that some draws are ok. I agree with your issue. However changing the chess rules will not solve the problem. I have no problem with draws that occur in the endgame. This shows that the players have given it all they can. 

   The issue is the early no-fight draw, the kind we saw in today's game between Anand and Leko. It was drawn after 19 short moves. Anand with the white pieces could have pressed Leko, but he did not. If Anand beats Leko in this short match, I think Anand could say, hey   maybe I  really deserve to play Kramnik for the world championship. Now it will be Leko turn on Friday, 7/29/2004, to press Anand. Should Leko win this match, then he can say, hey I am the best of the rest and deserve to play Kramnik for the world championship. Well in a two game match not much can be determined, however Leko can use this to build momentum going into the world championship match in September. 

   On Friday, I think Leko should be looking to beat Anand, the number 2 player in the world.  A Leko victory over Anand would reaffirm Leko's right to face Kramnik for the title. Anand strategy might be to bring the match into the rapid/blitz phase, where Anand  excels. GM John Fedorowicz said it best on chess fm, you got to take advantage of your whites. Today, Anand did not take advantage of his white, lets see if Leko will do so on Friday. 
 
 Charlie, in order to have an exciting chess game, you need two opponents trying to win. Maybe the players should follow my 7th chess commandment.  We need to change players attitudes about the game and not the game itself.

  Here are some more ideas about fixing the short draws:

      1)      Lets make use of the Fischer rule in the 1992 match against Spassky. If a game ends in under 1 hour, then switch sides and play again.

2)      Maurice Ashley’s no draw offers before 50 moves.

3)      Lets take a page from Don Shultz book “ChessDon”. Don likes to split out some of the prize fund into a winning pool. Each player gets money for each game they won.

4) Alex Baburin had an interesting Idea, in ChessToday.  In today's game, the appearance fees are higher than the prize funds. He suggests taking money from players appearance fees and putting it into the prize funds.  This might just be what the doctor ordered. This could put the fight back into the game.

5) lets encourage winning more, by changing the scoring system.
1.2 points for a win with black
1.1 points for a win with white
.5 points for a draw

  

   I will close with the my Fischer equation:

     Great Sponsorship (big dollars)  = (Players Reliability) * (Players Ability) * (Players desire to win).

     It is in the players interest to play for a win most of the time.

lg