it's not against draws, but against premature draw offers. Moreover, it's hard to see how the impossibility of offering a draw before move 40 can affect a chess career.
Anyway, I read that Europe recently decided to push  chess teaching at elementary schools, so maybe this question will gain attention in other countries too.

Exactly.
there are both pleasant and negative aspect to the art of draw offer, such as : draw hassle (a children's favourite), draw offer on opponent's zeitnot, deniable offer (hand or glance) on opponent's time...

For what I know, football is just as drawish as chess, how come they don't have draw offers ? historical reasons perhaps for chess, "I offer a draw" was honorable and must have saved a few heads.

Anyway, best of success on your upcoming Top12 games!


-- wrt post #103 : as you & markovitch point out, nothing in chess rules can prevent players from fixing games (draw,win,loss -- why just draw?). it's a matter of police rather than chess. chess rules can't fight against this, but they can fight spontaneous unfought draws, which in my view is worth something.
Anyway, we'll see if this 40-move rule dies or spreads.

Markovich wrote on 05/22/12 at 01:50:23:

Yes, this is true unfortunately, and one inevitable result of the anti-draw rule in France is that players will simply decide to play pre-arranged games that end in perpetual check.
It surely can't be a positive idea to encourage such behaviour?

Markovich wrote on 05/22/12 at 01:50:23:


Well, there's a difference between job and recreation. Most people get fed up with their job at some point but still continue to do their job. 

(Btw, in some of the larger open events it's even possible to get a "bye" - a half point without play, if I understand it correctly.)


Quote:


Resignation is what you do instead of a move, and it doesn't need to be accepted - if you resign you lose, nothing propositional about it. 
A draw offer must be accompanied by a move, but is not a move in itself. (though many players are ignorant of that, which is another reason to remove the option of irritating your opponent with unwanted draw offers while they're thinking.)

Quote:


A draw is the most likely outcome of a game between opponents of roughly equal strength, but let them at least play a draw than agree a draw.
Sure, people of a drawish predisposition could for example invent a sign inviting a three-fold rep, and let them do that. But there's no reason to make it easier for them.
In society, the selling of drugs also seem impossible to stop, but it's still illegal - which at least stops the sellers from standing in front of a school shouting "Buy your heroine here, only $9.95 per gram the next half hour!"

I think most countries organise tournaments, even down to below 2000 level, that there is one game per day (only one schedule for all players in the tournament). So there is no factor of tiring due to playing more than one game per day. And the time control is usually standardised at FIDE level: 30 moves for 90 minutes, then 30 additional minutes with/without a 30 second increment for the remainder of the game. So an average game lasts 3-4 hours long. But still, I rather not play an extended 5 hours with increment playing this drawn position, wasting energy, and having to eat dinner at 00.00. The last international tournament I played in was in the Canadian Open where my longest game was 4 hours, which was a long draw, and I had to eat dinner close to 00h00. If I had to play even further, I would probably have to eat dinner around 01h00, or order pizzæ or takeaway. Then I would have to sleep later than normal, probably 03h00, if I had to play my drawn game even further.

I remember long ago when I played in some tournament that had an extremely long time control (three time controls with a total game that could last 7 hours with time delay  ), and the rounds were at night. So several times my games finished at 01.00 or 02.00 if I remember correctly, with even some games still in progress. Then I had to eat dinner around 03h00 or 04h00. It caused my digestive system some problems, especially when I had to sleep at 05h00 or 06h00, and wake up at 15h00, eating "breakfast" at 17h00. What if the no-draw rule were implemented in this tournament? What time would my games be possible to finish?! 

Markovich wrote on 05/21/12 at 14:57:50:

Oops, sorry about leaving such a long quote, but I entirely agree with everything you've written.
The only justification I can see for curtailing early draws is in elite tournaments with lots of spectators and where the players have been paid serious sums of money to play.
Even then, this is easy to get round (Linares furnished many examples). Maybe the organisers of such tournaments should invite the most combative players rather than just those with the biggest ELO? I mean, if you invite players like Sutovsky, Shirov, Topalov, Morozevich, etc. the spectators are sure to get fantastic games to watch.

Wow, this thread has become a tangled web in ~24 hours. I agree with Tony. I will split off the suggestions regarding proposed chess variants. 

maybe a distinction could be made in the last item:
- no of the players think that the position is a dead draw
- no if the players think that the position is equal

In Nancy this rule was enforced, in the following way : for a draw occuring before move 40, the players had to call the arbiter, who would look for a repetition in the score sheets. If no valid repetition occurred, he could reject the draw and ask the players to play on. No incident occurred, and several games ended with bare kings.