"Rich Hutnik" wrote in message
...
On Apr 21, 12:33 am, Rich Hutnik wrote:
This headline was around 1990 or so in the NY Times. Can someone
please argue that having the world champion retaining their title
because the tournament ended on a draw does anything to increase
interest in chess and improve its viability?

Please let me know if you see this doing ANYTHING at all to help chess
in any way. Ok, maybe draws aren't the problem, but are they part of
the solution?

I don't think the principle that the champion retains the title
on a tied match is wrong. The problem in chess is that in a
relatively short match (24 games then, 12? now),
it is mathematically a big advantage. It is easy to take steps to
that bring the drawn match probability down to the 1% range. Once
that is done, I don't think that giving the champ draw odds is
unreasonable.