Tuesday 5 December 2017

Blitz Bonus to combat Drawfest Tournaments?

Not very excited by the above results table? Me neither. Here's a quick blog post for an idea I had that I can't accommodate into a Tweet.

I'm not in favour of changing chess simply because a few super-tournaments have too many draws. I think it is better to address tournament formats, time controls and the mix of players.

Here's my idea. In elite tournaments, where the players are just too damned good at defending bad positions, we allow them to play their classical games exactly as now, with the same time control and draw rules and rating changes, etc, and they score 1-½-0 as now. The difference is that every draw has to be followed by a #BonusBlitz tie-break match of two blitz games (further sets of two games or maybe an Armageddon if they end 1-1) for an extra ½ point on the scoreboard for the winner. The players get ushered into a special TV studio with plenty of cameras and commentators on hand so that the audience can enjoy them to the max. So the scoring system becomes 1 point (if you win the classical or the blitz decider), ½ (if you draw the classical game but lose the #BonusBlitz) and 0 (if you lose the classical game).

I'm not a statistician / mathematician / logician so I imagine there'll be holes to pick in my idea but perhaps it's worth debating. It would save us from dreary results tables like the one above. And the bonus from the spectator point of view is that you are guaranteed to see some blood spilt, come what may.

EDIT: in response to the well-made first comment below I'm wondering whether a point system of 3-2-1-0 might be better (3 for a classical win, 2 for a blitz win, 1 for a blitz loss, 0 for classical loss).