Monday 26 March 2007

More on Draw Offers

The Association of Chess Professionals has just released the results of the survey they conducted of its members concerning Draw Offers.
Just a little under 50% of the players surveyed replied that they thought that the rules should stay as they are, ie allowed at any stage of the game. Interestingly, the next most popular choice was no draw offers at all (the Corsican rule). However this was only by a small margin ahead of no draw offers before move 30 and no draw offers before move 40.
The full results of the survey are here.
As for my own opinion, I believe the rules should stay as they are, mainly because there is no real way of enforcing restrictions. As demonstrated in Gibraltar, if a player wants a quick draw then it sometimes can happen anyway, and if two players want a quick draw they can play down some well known drawing lines in the opening eg
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.O-O Bg4 6.h3 h5 7.c3 Qd3 8.hxg4 hxg4 9.Nxe5 Bd6 10.Nxd3 Bh2+ 11.Kh1 Bg3+ 1/2-1/2

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