On 22 Mar, 22:02, "David Kane" wrote:
"Mark Houlsby" wrote in message

oups.com...

On 22 Mar, 18:47, "David Kane" wrote:

The hotly contested, perfectly
played draw is not as common as you think.

In fact, it has never been played, so it is *exactly* as common as I
think.

You are very confused.

Not about this, I'm not.

There *are* many games
without obvious errors

Right. Without *obvious* errors. We don't know how many errors there
are even in the shortest GM draws. Nevertheless 1.d4 may prove, one
day to be a significant error. If it does, it will be beside the
point.

where the result
is a draw and the games appear fully contested.
(Admittedly, we haven't defined exactly what is
meant by "fully contested" but most thinking people
can accept that it is a meaningful concept.) But these
are a minority.


What has their being a minority got to do with anything? You're
writing about periphery.

In the 2006 IPCCC computer event, 8 of 35 (23%)
games were draws. That would be a reasonable
first guess for the natural drawing rate in contested
games at the GM level. You've yet to explain where
the extra 40+% of draws comes from.

As I just stated, we've *already* established this. We have, haven't
we? I mean, you're not going to troll this one *again*, I hope?

You've established nothing.

Oh, but I have, and if you could read, you'd understand that I have.

To put it another way, if playing
the best move (aka "playing chess") at the GM level
produces about 25% draws (as evidenced by computers),
then why do GM's not play the best moves?

That would be because it's not necessary to play the best moves in
order to score GM norms and have one's title ratified by FIDE.

DUH!


(as
evidenced by their 60+% draw rates)

Larry Tapper hit on the answer exactly. He noted
that "high-level players are canny utility maximizers".

Uh huh. Larry's a smart guy. I've never had to take issue with him for
reading badly or putting words in my mouth or anything like that.

They aren't maximizing good chess, they are maximizing
"highest tournament score".

Correct. We've already been over this, I think.

They aren't really
playing chess,

Oh, but they are!

The short draws are a necessary adjunct of the contested games
(regardless of the results of the contested games). READ NIMZOWITSCH'S
ESSAY and you'll find out why.

they are engaging in a competition
which has chess as a component. They've
concluded that playing the best move is a
sub-optimal strategy and that it is better to
play a number of uncontested or partially
contested games.


Yup. Standard boilerplate tournament technique. Understood by GMs.
Almost universally misunderstood by illiterate morons.

You are free to like that situation, but I am free
to dislike it.

Sure you are.

I think it is ridiculous to dissuade
the world's best players from playing the best
chess possible.

Newsflash: requiring the world's best players to avoid GM draws exerts
*exactly the same effect* as dissuading them from playing the best
chess possible. In order to play the best chess possible, it's
necessary to make short draws, quite often.


To distort the game to the degree
where the draw rate is double or greater the
natural draw rate is lunacy.

The natural draw rate is 100% of games' being drawn. Decisive games
result from decisive mistakes. It's impossible to produce double or
greater than double 100% of drawn games.

You really don't understand these very basic concepts, do you?