Raymond Keene

Winter’s tail

issue 09 January 2016

The London Classic, the end of the million-dollar Grand Tour, was something of a damp squib. A surfeit of draws meant the event largely boiled down to who was most effectively able to despatch the cellar dwellers Anand and Topalov. Top scores out of nine were as follows: Carlsen, Giri and Vachier-Lagrave 51/2 each, Aronian 5, and Britain’s Mickey Adams 41/2.

What to do about such a preponderance of drawn games? In the past, whenever the threat of draw death has loomed, some charismatic genius — Alekhine, Tal, Kasparov — has emerged to revitalise the game at the top. But the reigning champion and overall Grand Tour winner, Magnus Carlsen, effective as he is, simply does not possess this kind of dynamism.

Proposals to reduce the tedium of draws in elite events have included Nigel Short’s plea to convert stalemate to a win, the 3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss scoring system, as well as banning certain openings, such as the Petroff and the Berlin defences.

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