Draws are getting cheaper, are 15W enough?

[Ozymandias]

The draw rate keeps rising, and it's been years since anybody at the top even lost a game.

When I started playing Freestyle,12 years ago, this was the picture:



Nothing radically different, from what we can see in correspondence chess.

By 2012, I was already at the top and losing 0 games. And yet, it felt like I could lose a game, and true enough, with a 100+ games accumulated, I finally lost one in 2014.

Then came the ICUC a couple of years ago, where only a couple of games were legitimately lost among the top 20 players, that's a draw rate of 99%+. My overclocked 5820K was one of the engines that didn't loose a game, but it needed a long TC, nearly 200W and my private DB to accomplish that.

Fast forward to yesterday's 40th EMT, and I was able to replicate that at a rapid TC, with an i5-8250U and some public books.

And yet, people insist that the draw death of chess isn't here.

[zullil]

The draw rate keeps rising, and it's been years since anybody at the top even lost a game.
...
And yet, people insist that the draw death of chess isn't here.

Just unplug your computer, and actually play chess. Problem solved.

[Uri Blass]

The draw rate keeps rising, and it's been years since anybody at the top even lost a game.

When I started playing Freestyle,12 years ago, this was the picture:



Nothing radically different, from what we can see in correspondence chess.

By 2012, I was already at the top and losing 0 games. And yet, it felt like I could lose a game, and true enough, with a 100+ games accumulated, I finally lost one in 2014.

Then came the ICUC a couple of years ago, where only a couple of games were legitimately lost among the top 20 players, that's a draw rate of 99%+. My overclocked 5820K was one of the engines that didn't loose a game, but it needed a long TC, nearly 200W and my private DB to accomplish that.

Fast forward to yesterday's 40th EMT, and I was able to replicate that at a rapid TC, with an i5-8250U and some public books.

And yet, people insist that the draw death of chess isn't here.

See the following tournament.
27 games out of 28 are draws and only one unfinished game.

If the last game is a draw we are going to have perfect draw result(I am not sure if it is the first tournaments in the ICCF with 100% draws in case of a draw or we had in the past some tournament with 100% draws).

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=68635

Edit:Note that I do not include tournaments like the following that has also 100% draws.

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=68661

I wonder if there is a tournament with at least 7 players that is finished with 100% draws in the past in the history of ICCF.

[Uri Blass]

I could find the following tournament that had 100% draws except one losing player but it is not good enough because this tournament has also less than 100 games.

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=66679

I do not see so far one world championship in correspondence chess with at least 99% draws

The following event has 123 draws out of 136 games that is more than 90% but not close to 100%
https://www.iccf.com/event?id=52852

The following event has 122 draws out of 131 games and 5 unfinished games

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=66745

We still do not know what is going to happen in the following event

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=79897

[Ozymandias]

See the following tournament.
27 games out of 28 are draws and only one unfinished game.

If the last game is a draw we are going to have perfect draw result(I am not sure if it is the first tournaments in the ICCF with 100% draws in case of a draw or we had in the past some tournament with 100% draws).

https://www.iccf.com/event?id=68635

Because of the time it takes to complete games, only now are we getting the results from a tournament started two years ago.

Many players are capable of drawing all their games nowadays at correspondence time controls. But due to the irrelevant nature of ratings, many tournaments will include players who are still "vulnerable". I'm sure there may be other tournaments with 100% draws in the past, but you'd need to do some browsing.

[lkaufman]

Does anyone run correspondence or freestyle events with rules designed to avoid or minimize draws, such as specified one-sided openings or startpositions, or modifications of the normal draw rules, or anything else? It seems that attempts to do something about draws should start with correspondence and freestyle events.

[Ozymandias]

Does anyone run correspondence or freestyle events with rules designed to avoid or minimize draws, such as specified one-sided openings or startpositions, or modifications of the normal draw rules, or anything else? It seems that attempts to do something about draws should start with correspondence and freestyle events.

Well, you have thematic tournaments, although I don't think they're devised to tackle this particular problem.

At Freestyle, I seem to recall they tried to give a score of 07/0.3 for a stalemate, with very limited effect.

It's true that correspondence and freestyle events should be first to address the issue, but they mostly seem to dance around it.

[lkaufman]

Does anyone run correspondence or freestyle events with rules designed to avoid or minimize draws, such as specified one-sided openings or startpositions, or modifications of the normal draw rules, or anything else? It seems that attempts to do something about draws should start with correspondence and freestyle events.

Well, you have thematic tournaments, although I don't think they're devised to tackle this particular problem.

At Freestyle, I seem to recall they tried to give a score of 07/0.3 for a stalemate, with very limited effect.

It's true that correspondence and freestyle events should be first to address the issue, but they mostly seem to dance around it.

Stalemate is too rare for that rule to do much, although of course it will change some basic endgames. Much more significant is addressing bare king (making king and minor vs king a win), and doing something about repetitions, at the very least those due to perpetual check should be either banned or scored something like .3 for the side giving perpetual, .7 for the other. These two changes would have a huge effect. Thematic tournaments will also address the problem if the required opening is sufficiently favorable for one side (near the win/draw line), but picking one position that would interest most chessplayers is the problem.

[maxdeg]

Does anyone run correspondence or freestyle events with rules designed to avoid or minimize draws, such as specified one-sided openings or startpositions, or modifications of the normal draw rules, or anything else? It seems that attempts to do something about draws should start with correspondence and freestyle events.

Well, you have thematic tournaments, although I don't think they're devised to tackle this particular problem.

At Freestyle, I seem to recall they tried to give a score of 07/0.3 for a stalemate, with very limited effect.

It's true that correspondence and freestyle events should be first to address the issue, but they mostly seem to dance around it.

The Grand Poobahs at ICCF are about as accustomed to innovation as dogs poop .. a rule in place currently (to be changed in January) restricts results of games within the ICCF quarter to no more than 50 to be included in their ELO calculation. If you happen to have completed >50 games your games are NOT included in their dumbass algorithm. Players have lost over 100 ELO points - proof available.


2019-034 Calculation for Fixed Ratings
Proposed by Uwe Staroske, QC - in co-operation with Gerhard Binder, RC

Abstract

Increase the number of 50 to 80 games to change the calculation method of fixed ratings.

Proposal

The proposal refers to item 16 of appendix 1 of the rules (The working rules of the rating system) Change the number of games from 50 to 80:
…except for those players who finished more than 80 games in the current period

Rationale

Players who exceed the threshold of 80 games are rated according to the working formula no. 5, although their rating is fixed.

Assessment

The number of 50 stems from “old times”, in which correspondence chess was not that fast as it is today. Furthermore the number of tournaments has increased considerably. Consequently more players than before surpass this threshold, without doing so deliberately.Effort

Update of the ICCF Rules document + update of the server software.
Modification to the webserver, cost to be estimated (probably low) and reported in the Services Director’s report to Congress. No big risk of errors.

Considerations

Less players than before are going to be rated according to item 5. Therefore in principle it is easier for the players to accumulate positive elo gains. Nevertheless it is necessary to determine a threshold to change the calculation method. If a player exceeds the number of 80 rated games in one elo period, the results of these games describe the player’s playing strength much better than the results from the past.
Since the current rule (threshold of 50 games) came into effect in 2016, about 20 players are pertained by this rule. The increase of the threshold decreases the number of concerned players to the very rare cases (2 players as an average).

Documentation

see above


Comments
7/5/2019 Mariusz Wojnar
The analysis is very superficial, and the conclusions are erroneous. I do not see rational justification for this change.

The rating system cannot be blamed and changed often when it works.
The duration of the tournament has nothing to do with it. Former postal tournaments (from "old times") lasted a similarly long time as now about 2 years (post office was more efficient then!), rarely it was about 3 years.

The real player's strength is demonstrated by performance rating (Rp) and not the small parts of points scored in massive number of weak tournaments! This was the reason for the limitation (the very rare cases, but they did happen) a few years ago (in 2016, it's just 2 years and few months) to 50 parties in the evaluated period, so that the players would not abuse the rating system!

From:
https://www.iccf.com/Proposals.aspx?id=72

[Ozymandias]

Stalemate is too rare for that rule to do much, although of course it will change some basic endgames. Much more significant is addressing bare king (making king and minor vs king a win), and doing something about repetitions, at the very least those due to perpetual check should be either banned or scored something like .3 for the side giving perpetual, .7 for the other.

King plus piece should score better than Stalemate, but I wouldn't give it the full point. Perpetual... scoring like you propose is sensible, but how many checks are needed? Three repetitions I would disincentivize, by scoring it as only .4 (for both sides). The 50 moves could be .4 for the side making the last move, .6 for the other.