Drawing Conclusions
Submitted by
on Sat, 06/21/2008 at 2:13am.
Sometimes draws are obvious. Stalemate is one, insufficient mating material another, perpetual check a third. Three-time repetition can be a little harder to see and I've only once had a game that applied the 50-move rule.
Most draws are by agreement—but when should you offer and when should you accept?
There's no clear answer; it depends on who you are, how you feel about your chances, and how you feel about your opponent. Is s/he much stronger than you? Is s/he less experienced and likely to blunder?
My draw statistics have hovered around 11% since I joined chess.com last August. I checked out ten players whose ratings were close to mine, and who had played at least 100 games, and found that five of them had draw percentages between 2% and 5% while the others were 9% to 12%—so mine was among the highest.
Perhaps I should fight a bit harder. Perhaps it's just a willingness to take a draw rather than risk a loss. I'm not sure myself. It's probably simply an acknowledgement that my endgame knowledge is less than I'd like. One thing that has become a factor in turn-based chess is that I can save weeks against a slow-moving player by accepting a draw.
But there's also the knowledge, painfully earned, that when a draw is offered in an even position, the person who refuses it and tries to upset the equilibrium to win runs the risk of destroying his own position.
This week I found myself a pawn down but with two pieces for a rook. Materially that meant that I had the smallest advantage. Because I wanted to keep my king and two pieces where they could prevent the black rook using the only open file, I offered a draw.
My opponent refused, and we played on.
From my point-of-view I was happy to keep the bishop and knight in position to protect my queen side pawns, while his plan was to penetrate with his king to b3 then sacrifice his rook for the bishop, capture my a-pawn, step aside and leave me powerless to stop his a-pawn's progress.
Well, that was the theory, but my king took things into his own hands and moved to c2. With the support of the knight, it stalemated the black king. Now black was in zugzwang and was forced to move his pawns. The trick was to allow one through to avoid stalemate. Alas, for the gallant pawn, it reached it's goal on h1 but was a move too late.
Here's the game. Other errors aside—and they'll be there—I'd appreciate some comments about the draw offer and the end game.
Was I correct to offer a draw on move 43?
Did black have the opportunity to break through without sacrificing the exchange?
What could either of us have done to improve the play in the game?
Tell me what you think.