WCh Chennai: The Nature of Draws

WCh Chennai: The Nature of Draws

By Tryfon Gavriel

Draws in chess are inevitable when two players exhaust all possible winning chances, and did not blunder or make mistakes that were that easily exploitable. The witty Savielly Tartakower had a quotation about the winner in chess:

“The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."

Mikhail Tal had something to say about playing for draws especially with the White pieces:

“To play for a draw, at any rate with white, is to some degree a crime against chess”

Material loss doesn't always guarantee one side a win, especially since chess is so vastly complex that even when material is lost unintentionally, there are often other implications such as piece quality and time.

When covering past world championships game annotator for magazines and chess media often sought to prioritize covering games of major interest. In the classic Fischer-Spassky match from 1972, game six held a certain personal attraction. It seemed to be a wonderful illustration of hanging pawns, positional pawn sacs, switching the attack from queenside to kingside, culminating in a fine exchange sacrifice at move 38 to really damage black's king safety. Spassky was also so impressed that after the game he joined the audience and applauded Fischer's win. The astounded Fischer called his opponent “a true sportsman”.

Fischer's handshake with Spassky in their 1972 match looks more heartfelt
than is usually seen

One is naturally attracted to brilliant games and brilliant sacrifices, and often these games have decisive outcomes. A requirement of the much celebrated brilliant games is for one side to blunder, and sometimes they are called “Immortal”. There is some confusion sometimes when claims are made that a game should not be called “Immortal” if it contained inaccuracies. One of the most famous disputed immortals of all time, is the following game by the American chess legend Paul Morphy:

Paul Morphy playing in New York in 1857

Some of the draws of the 1972 match I had simply not covered on Youtube. The activity of chess is such that new brilliant games are being played each week with a decisive result, or a brilliant combination. Perhaps this is an injustice to the level of understanding that readers of magazines, and chess media can get from these drawn chess games. It may also serve to heighten the disappointment when matches actually have drawn games that they are not used to seeing as much as the well-publicized decisive games.

For example, the following game from the 1972 match, quickly ended in a drawish rook and pawn endgame:

It has some theoretical interest because of the 9..b5 move which was fairly rare at the time. Simplifications later occurred leading to a rook and pawn ending in which both sides had four pawns on the kingside each, and the players agreeing to a draw after 29.hxg5.

Fischer-Spassky, game 21 of their match in 1972

Games 14-20 of the Fischer-Spassky match were drawn, but these were really fighting draws. All of these games were 40 moves or more. With each draw, Fischer's possibility of winning the match increased.

One of the most controversial and perhaps annoying type of draws to spectators and fans are early agreed draws. Sometimes these occur in the last round of tournaments, when players may like to have more time to get away, and the final round often being played earlier than usual to facilitate travel arrangements. However, often these final round games carry high stakes. Agreement of draws is a risk-free method of helping ensure some prize fund reward which is often essential to the professional chess player.

In the very strong Sofia 2005 tournament the organiser employed a rule, which has become known as the "Sofia rules". The players could not draw by agreement, and could draw by stalemate, threefold repetition, the fifty-move rule, and insufficient material. Other draws were only allowed if the arbiter declared it a drawn position.

Topalov was in supreme form and won Sofia 2005

In our current world championship match of 2013, the first two games were drawn by a forced repetition of moves, to the disappointment of chess fans. Although the second game had more moves played, it actually ended quicker than the first game. What added to the disappointment was perhaps the promise of a bloodthirsty battle when both sides had castled on opposite sides.

Magnus Carlsen has a reputation of grinding out wins where most grandmasters would have agreed a draw many many moves ago. Here are two interesting examples of Magnus doing this. The first is shown in his win against Karjakin – a mammoth 92 move game:

Another game that cemented Carlsen's reputation for squeezing blood from a rock

And more recently his win against Levon Aronian, where he turned down a draw offer which was all that was needed to secure first prize in the tournament:

Indeed this particular game may have been making a wider statement about the world championship match we are now experiencing.

Thankfully the last two games of our current world championship have shown hugely interesting battles of epic proportions, the largest being that of game four. Such “fighting draws” deserve to be annotated and publicised not just in the current times but in years to come.

What was particularly fascinating about game four is that the opening choice made no claims of excitement that spectators were aware of. The opening was the dreaded “Berlin Wall” which Vladimir Kramnik had popularised after defeating Garry Kasparov in the Classical World Chess Championship 2000, known at the time as the “Braingames World Chess Championship”. In fact there were only two decisive games in this match – games two and ten. Vladimir Kramnik had seemingly used a rock solid system to neutralize the legendary dynamic and attacking play of Garry Kasparov.

Game four also echoed culturally the classic first game of the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match, where Fischer took a risky pawn on h2. This was after a symmetrical pawn structure from the opening was established, which generally promises a dull draw, especially in conjunction with queens coming off the board.

Both players immersed in the complications of game four

Move 29 Bxh2 was criticised by many as a terrible blunder by Fischer. However more likely perhaps is that it was the result of a subtle miscalculation for how the king could be used to travel to a certain square and stop the bishop's escape. This is explained in the following video:

When Magnus Carlsen played 18.Bxa2, there seem to be a very powerful paradox at work.

“How could we have reached this exciting position from the Berlin Defence?!”

It really confused spectators live of the game. The game had become unexpectedly interesting. And with no Queens in sight either. Was this pawn sacrifice part of Vishy's preparation?! Was it a blunder of some sort?! Engine analysis at high depths seemed to indicate it was safe to take the pawn. The game had taken a truly dramatic turn. And this wasn't just the first dramatic turn the game would see as Vishy sacrificed a pawn quite deliberately later with the move 35.Ne4

An amazingly intense dramatic draw of 64 moves – the same number as squares on the chessboard.

The match now is truly alive!