Just took a quick look:
Aronian-Grischuk already drawn
Vallejo-Topalov looks to be heading for a draw

Gelfand is a pawn up against Gashimov, and I don't see Gashimov's compensation.  Too soon to make a call but Gelfand, who got no votes in the poll, may take the lead with the first victory.

Well Carlsen is confirmed to participate in the 2011 Linares. It is odd to have this announced one full year ahead. I wonder if disappointment with this year's line up prompted the organizers to announce this ahead of time.

Lost in all these statistics on Kramnik's draw rate as black is that he has an overall plus score as Black, which is pretty rare at the top.

But focusing just on his performance as Black is not really a fair consideration anyway.  In order to deserve a drawing reputation, the draw ratio as white, when top players are expected to strive for the maximum, should be a more telling statistic.  But even more compelling than drawing statistics is the games themselves.  Kramnik fights hard to gain the maximum in almost every game.   

The top players today almost never play  against large fields the way Fischer did. Fischer rarely played in small, elite tournaments the way current players do.  Only Kasparov's generation and beyond has had such consistently high level competition, which raises the drawing chances for top players.

katar wrote on 02/11/10 at 17:47:18:


Again, this does not say what time frame these 46 games as black are from. And regardless of when they are, its only a 46 game sample, which hardly means all that much. My database, current through the end of 2009, shows this:

Kramnik all-time as black: 162 wins for white, 556 draws and 278 wins for black. 56% draw rate. 
2000-2009 as black: 70-250-83. 62% draw rate.
2005-2009 as black: 37-118-35.  63% draw rate. 

For comparison, Anand and Ivanchuk:
Anand: All time: 55% draw rate. 2000-2009: 60% draw. 2005-2009: 55% draw rate.
Ivanchuk: All time: 53% draw rate. 2000-2009: 56% draw rate. 2005-2009: 55%.

Kramnik's draw rate may be slightly higher, but it doesn't look out of line to me.

My point is responding to MNb's post directly above mine, as indicated by "@MNb".  The subject matter is whether Kramnik deserves his apparent reputation for making a disproportionate number of draws.  

I presented stats retrieved from Fide.com on the given date.  Presumably the stats cover games immediately prior to the retrieval date.  Since you asked for a comparison: Kramnik's draw frequency as Black simply dwarfs that of any other top GM.

Percentage of Games Drawn as Black, according to Fide.com as of 13th Mar 2009.
Kramnik 87%
Anand 66%
Aronian 66%
Carlsen 62%
Radjabov 61%
Ivanchuk 58%
Shirov 48%
Topalov 43%
Morozevich 41%

As of today, Fide.com indicates Kramnik's draw frequency as Black is 81%.  Based on the above statistics (notwithstanding Corus 2010), it appears there may be some basis for Kramnik's (former) reputation for making a disproportionate number of draws, at least as Black.

QUOTE: "Thus drawing percentage hardly matters as much as the overall score."
True enough, but drawing percentage matters when the issue being discussed is a player's reputation for making draws.

katar wrote on 02/11/10 at 14:20:10:


What is your point? That he should lose more with Black?  

An isolated statistic like this is meaningless without context. What time span does this cover exactly? And how does this compare with other elite players who play only on the super tournament circuit? In addition, it is well known that different players adopt different strategies with Black. Players like Shirov will obviously win more with Black, but lose more. Thus drawing percentage hardly matters as much as the overall score. 

Perhaps that had something to do with health issues? Seems enough justification to me.
The simple fact is that Kramnik's drawing rate is considerably lower than that of Spassky and about the same as Karpov's.
Not everybody can be like Kasparov, Tal or Shirov.
Fischer had an extremely low drawing rate. As he has played about 600 games in his entire career and Kramnik already 2000 that does not say too much.