April 1. 2005 - a historic date

[bnst]

Chessbase always had the tradition of an "April fool" joke on their page. In 2005 everybody got fooled because of the following article:
https://en.chessbase.com/post/draws-for ... ournaments
Here is Chessbase's own summing up two days later:
https://en.chessbase.com/post/april-1st ... ournament-

What a wonderful "joke" it was and for us chess spectators the world has never been the same.

Regards
anst

[Jouni]

The best ever CB joke was: IM Rajlich Claims the King's Gambit is Solved by Rybka Cluster. I almost believed it's true .

[Uri Blass]

It is possible not to allow draws without the agreement of the arbiter today based on the fide chess rules.

9.1.1
The regulations of an event may specify that players cannot offer or agree to a draw, whether in less than a specified number of moves or at all, without the consent of the arbiter.

[Ovyron]

This was my favorite part:

The chief arbiter of the event is Joaquin Espejo (Spain), deputy arbiters are Boris Postovski (USA) and Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The GM advisor is Zurab Azmaiparashvili (Georgia), FIDE Vice President.

Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos? Really? Who has that name?

The "Draws are banned" story was perfectly true! Every last word of it.
At the Super-GM tournament in Sofia the participants will not be allowed
to offer draws, only the arbiter can do that.

So that article was not an April Fool's prank.

Oh wow! This blew my mind! XD A reverse April Fool's prank, the kind that can fool people 17 years later! (I was fooled into thinking it was a joke!)

[bnst]

It was a revolution. Short draws, often after just one move, was a big problem. Everybody had discussed doing something about it, but also nobody thought it would ever happen since it was so ingrained in the top chess world.
Chess fans traveled hours to watch their heroes play and saw them shake hands immediately and leave.

Then we got the april 1. 2005 announcement and the rest is as they say history.

Regards
anst