I remain confused by why high level chess has so many draws. As I understand it, most draws are by agreement: that is, rather than playing the game out until they see that neither player is capable of winning, people will play a few dozen moves and then agree to a draw with plenty of pieces still on the board. But in any given position someone has to be favored (if only slightly), so when one player offers a draw and the other accepts, someone is making a mistake. I could understand if this was common in amateurs who might be inclined to say “Eh, this game’s in a boring state and I don’t want to play any more” but I’m baffled to see it from players who seem to be skilled win-maximizers.
In very important tournaments, games can be intense enough that if you play a very long game (up to 6 hours of focus) you will be tired/play more poorly the next day
I would guess that of draws in high-level chess are by agreement from a position such that there is a significant chance the game will still be decisive, but I haven’t checked. Maybe you get to draws effectively-by-agreement from unclear positions if you also include threefold repetitions that aren’t that forced, but I’d still guess weakly against.
Most draws are by agreement, but my guess is that a good chunk of these are from positions which are very drawish (in particular, often from endgame positions which are known draws).
Anyway, I agree that a bunch of draws are by agreement from a position with many pieces on the board, and it’s interesting why these exist.
I think it’s often about conserving resources as Kennaway said (mostly for other games in the same event). I think it’s occasionally about just not feeling like playing. I think it’s also reasonably commonly about effective utilities of outcomes not matching 0⁄0.5/1 for other reasons. Like, it’s easy to set up tournament situations in which a certain draw is better for a player than eg winning with probability and losing with probability . Utilities of chess outcomes don’t have to be 0⁄0.5/1 even if that is the number added to your tournament score. (Your utility also doesn’t have to match your elo.) For example, maybe you could keep pushing from an equal position and get a win probability and a loss probability, but this is the last game in the tournament and you already know a draw is sufficient for winning the tournament by 0.5 pts whereas losing the game would lead to second place for you, and winning is important enough[1] that continuing to push has negative EV for you (even though you have an advantage in the local context of the game). It’s easy to fill in more details so that continuing to play is also bad for the player with a disadvantage, so a certain draw is a better outcome for both players than continuing to play. In general: a chess game often doesn’t in fact have the payoffs it naively appears to have, and in particular it often isn’t a constant-sum interaction.
I remain confused by why high level chess has so many draws. As I understand it, most draws are by agreement: that is, rather than playing the game out until they see that neither player is capable of winning, people will play a few dozen moves and then agree to a draw with plenty of pieces still on the board. But in any given position someone has to be favored (if only slightly), so when one player offers a draw and the other accepts, someone is making a mistake. I could understand if this was common in amateurs who might be inclined to say “Eh, this game’s in a boring state and I don’t want to play any more” but I’m baffled to see it from players who seem to be skilled win-maximizers.
Conservation of resources. It may not be worth the effort of playing out the game just to get the result one expected.
What exactly is the resource being conserved, hours of the player’s life?
Hours of mental effort.
In very important tournaments, games can be intense enough that if you play a very long game (up to 6 hours of focus) you will be tired/play more poorly the next day
I would guess that
Most draws are by agreement, but my guess is that a good chunk of these are from positions which are very drawish (in particular, often from endgame positions which are known draws).
Anyway, I agree that a bunch of draws are by agreement from a position with many pieces on the board, and it’s interesting why these exist.
I think it’s often about conserving resources as Kennaway said (mostly for other games in the same event). I think it’s occasionally about just not feeling like playing. I think it’s also reasonably commonly about effective utilities of outcomes not matching 0⁄0.5/1 for other reasons. Like, it’s easy to set up tournament situations in which a certain draw is better for a player than eg winning with probability
eg because it’s the candidates tournament and you want to qualify for the world championship match