The fact that a chess game might have no winner is not a hindrance to its being televised. Boxing allows for draws, and it has no problem being televised. It’s not the fact they can occur, but rather the frequency with which they occur that causes the problem.

This is why I tend to think the future of chess as a spectator sport lies in shorter time controls. Boxing, for example, often has split rounds, where both fighters score the same. But over the long haul of the entire fight, they don’t affect the outcome.

Golf also gives us some guidance, here. Match play in golf provides for a hole to be “halved” (their term, but it equates to a draw in chess) if both players score the same on the hole. The winner of a match play event is the one who won the most holes during the round.

But golf gives us another idea. One very popular format is called the “Skins Game.” It’s played very much like a match play event, with one interesting difference. Instead of one big purse for the match winner, the prizes are divided into smaller prizes for each hole. And if the hole is halved, the prize for that hole is not awarded, but instead rolled over into the next hole. So if the golfers halve four consecutive holes, the winner of the fifth hole takes the prizes for all five holes.

Transferring that idea into chess would require two changes. First, each round of the event would have to consist of a set number of short games. And then the prize fund would have to be restructured so that players would win a set amount for each point from the short games.

If each round were a mini-match of 5 games, for example, a five-round event would consist of 25 games per player. The total prize fund, then would be divided by a number (say, total players * 12 as a rough estimate) and that would be the amount riding on each game. Class prizes would be done away with, as every one who wins at least one game (byes not counting) would win a small prize. (This number could even be weighted by a factor determined by standing, so that games between players leading an event count for more prize money than games between last-place players, if necessary.)

In this kind of system, draws in the mini-match would not score a half-point in the match, but instead would “roll over” to the next game. If the first two short games were drawn, the player who won the third game would score three points in the mini-match. Highest point total after 5 games wins the mini-match, with a split match going to the player with more blacks.

Then again, let’s look at “normal” time control games. You could apply this approach there as well, with a little difficulty. Once again, you structure the prize fund to be awarded on a “per win” basis. Then, if a game is drawn, each player brings half of the last game’s prize money forward to add to the stakes they would normally be playing for.

It would be nice if we could declare that draws in the last round simply forfeit the prize money for that game (because there would be no later round to resolve it) but we are intelligent enough to realize that only creates an incentive for players to throw games, with the “winner” agreeing to give half the money to the loser, so we know it wouldn’t be practical.

Neither system seems ideal in this rough state, but perhaps one of our readers can work out some kinks in the ideas, so we toss them before you to find out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 9:19 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.