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Subject: Re: Still Missing the Point

Author: Peter Kappler

Date: 15:45:23 05/16/00

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On May 16, 2000 at 18:14:46, Adrien Regimbald wrote:

>
>Some of you seem to think that the operator was doing Tiviakov a favour by
>offering a draw with 2 minutes left.  This is completely untrue.  Tiviakov at
>any time could have stopped the clock, called over the TD and claimed a draw.
>Also - if Tiviakov thought he couldn't have won the game considering the
>situation on the clock, he would have offered the draw himself - he clearly
>thought he still had chances to win the game!
>

Hi Adrien,

What you say about being able to claim a draw in a winning position is true, but
the position must be very easy to win, with absolutely no chance of a blunder,
and no chance for the weaker side to try to complicate the game and play for a
swindle.

In the USCF, there used to be a rule of thumb used by tournament directors to
determine if a position met these criteria.  The rule stated that if a
1500-rated player could hold (win or draw) the "winning" position against a
Grandmaster, then the player with this position could claim a draw to avoid
losing on time.

I don't think yesterday's Fritz-Tiviakov game would have met this requirement.

By the way, this whole mess is a textbook example of why sudden death time
controls are stupid.  This whole controversy could have been avoided with a
simple 5 or 10 second increment per move in the final time control.

--Peter






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