Proposal to make matches (tweekampen) more attractive

[Harry Zandvliet]

The reason that within matches a draw occurs so often is not caused by our sport, the problem is that winning positions is often a draw, because the winning player plays the wrong move at the end.The problem is from less importance in tournaments.
Draws in matches is not a recommendation for our sport. I do not care, but a news item about a match in a newspaper like ‘after a very exiting party, the came resultet in the 18’th draw at the 18’th game’ is not an advertising for our sport. Although, it could be that in that game, a player had two times a winning position. This is interesting for draught players, not for the general newspaper reader.
Last time, one try to solve this problem by inventing extra party’s if a normal game, based on regular time, results in draw, by playing extra blitz party’s until there is a winner. I do not like that. I want to see only real games with the normal time for each player. I am a conservative, regarding draughts, so I do not want to change rules either, or change plus draws into winning games.

I have an idea, or proposal if you want, that could be an acceptable solution for progressives and conservatives to make our sport more interesting, regarding matches, for the genaral public.
I do not like to introduce plus draws into games, it is also not an advertisement if we say that Boomstra is ahead with 2 plus draws. But may be, there is another variant possible.

Give a winning game the same score as number of games within one match. So if a match contains 15 games, then winning one game results in 15 points.
A plus draw results in one point extra, so a score of 2-1 if white has a plus draw. So if a match has 15 games, and black has 14 plus draws, then Black has 28 points, and white has 14 points. But if white wins one game (here the last), then white will be the world champignon, at the end with 29 points!
The newspaper will not talk, after 14 games, white was better but the game was a draw again, but the newspaper will write that white was better and wins an extra point, and has 28 againt 14 points!
So this change will not change the draught sport, but will make it only attractiver for the not draughts public to follow in the newspaper, and I think that this will give better propaganda for the draughts sport.

[Juri]

nothing attractive in this idea...
+- is also was bad choice.

existent match systems are enough attractive.
as was Georgiev-Shvartsman match
everyday we have a winner! newspapers will get the winner of a day! no problem.
or Set system also ok.

Better focused on organisation of matches at all!
in this field have a VERY BIG problems...
mathces organising with a big delay or at all no matches...

Georgiev - Ndjofang match had to be played last year...
so dont need talk about systems, till dont have a normal Calendar...

[TAILLE]

Hi,

The world champion match between Georgiev and Njofang remind us the problem involved by the draw games
As we all know two methodes were experimented to try and avoid draw results:
1) To change the time allocated to each player => rapid, blitz and super blitz games
2) To take into account an advantage obtained at the end of the game (draw, draw+, draw-)
As a number of people I think that (super) blitz games are not suitable : what will be the value of a world champion title if it is due to a (super) blitz winning game ?
Taking into account an advantage obtained at the end of the game could be a good idea: it allows to diminish the number of draw games but the number of draw games remains still high doesn’t it ?
Key point to understand : whatever rule you put for a match it will have a great impact on the way the players will play their games. Take the last world championship between Georgiev and Ndjofang. After the winning rapid game the second day, Georgiev knowed that he could win the match be « simply » forced the draw in each of the following « normal » and « rapid » games. Because Georgiev is a very strong player he managed rather easily to simplify these following games and, as a consequence, these games were not very interesting were they ?
If you change the match rules and you say for exemple that each day a player would be the winner of the day and will mark 1 point (without taking into account a win in « normal » or in a « super blitz game ») then it is clear that the player will play differently.
What would we like to change really ? My answer is the following : I like very much the complicate games implied by closed positions, I do not like open games in which a player takes all opportunities to provoque exchanges in order to simplify the game … and I do not like blitz game for a world championship.
The based issue I tried to solve is the following : is it possible to declare a winner after only one « normal » game and, at the same time, is it possible to obtained more exciting games ?
My answer is yes; you have only to build a system that rewards the risks ?
The basis of my proposal is quite simple : in order to reward the risks I look for penalizing the player who provoques exchanges !
With this idea I have only to build a methode as simple as possible in order to achieve this objective.
My proposal is the following :
As soon as an exchange serie begins the player who makes the first capture of the serie gains one point for each pieces captured during this serie.
An example will clarify my point. Let’s take the sixth game of the match, in which Georgiev played obviously to reach a draw :
At the beginning of the game white and black have 0 points : 0 – 0
01.32-28 19-23 => beginning of capture by white
02.28x19 => 1 point for white => 1 – 0
02…14x23 => 1 point for white => 2 – 0
03.33-28 => beginning of a capture by black
03…23x32 => 1 point for black => 2 – 1
04.37x28 => 1 point for black => 2 – 2
04…10-14
05.39-33 14-19
06.44-39 5-10
07.50-44 10-14
08.35-30 18-23
09.30-25 => beginning of a capture by black
09…23x32 => 1 point for black => 2 – 3
10.38x27 => 1 point for black => 2 – 4
10..12-18
11.41-37 7-12
12.46-41 1-7
13.37-32 18-23
14.41-37 13-18
15.42-38 8-13
16.33-28 20-24
17.28-22 => beginning of a capture by black
17…17x28 => 1 point for black => 2 – 5
18.27-21 => beginning of a capture by black
18…16x27 => 1 point for black => 2 – 6
19.31x33 => 2 points for black => 2 – 8
19…11-17 20.48-42 6-11
21.34-29 => beginning of a capture by black
23x34 => 1 point for black => 2 – 9
22.40x20 => 2 points for black => 2 – 11
15x24 => 1 point for black => 2 – 12
23.36-31 2-8
24.45-40 4-10
25.40-34 19-23
26.34-29 => beginning of a capture by black
26…23x34 => 1 point for black => 2 – 13
27.39x19 => 2 points for black => 2 – 15
13x24 => 1 point for black => 2 – 16
28.43-39 8-13
29.33-29 => beginning of a capture by black
29…24x33 => 1 point for black => 2 – 17
30.38x29 => 1 point for black => 2 – 18
30…18-23 => beginning of capture by white
31.29x18 => 1 point for white => 3 – 18
31…12x23 => 1 point for white => 4 – 18
32.39-33 7-12
33.31-27 10-15
34.44-39 14-20 => beginning of capture by white
35.25x14 => 1 point for white => 5 – 18
35…9x20 => 1 point for white => 6 – 18
36.49-44 20-24
37.44-40 15-20
38.42-38 20-25
39.40-35 3-9
40.47-42 9-14
41.33-28 14-19
42.37-31 11-16
43.42-37 13-18
44.39-34 24-29
45.31-26 => beginning of a capture by black
45…29x40 => 1 point for black => 6 – 19
46.35x44 => 1 point for black => 6 – 20
46…16-21 => beginning of a capture by white
47.27x16 => 1 point for white => 7 – 20
47…18-22
48.16-11 => beginning of a capture by black
48..22x31 => 3 point for black => 7 – 23
49.11x22 => 1 point for black => 7 – 24
49…31-36
50.22-17 => beginning of a capture by black
50…12x21 => 1 point for black => 7 – 25
51.26x17 => 1 point for black => 7 – 26
Result : black advantage : +19

In addition, in order to avoid any « pure » draw I propose to give 0,5 point to white at the beginning of the game : this is quite logical because white plays first and has a very small disadvantage with this new rule.
What about a winning game ? Without any experience I do not know what could be the best value for a winning game. The more natural approach would be to give the score +40 for a winning game, but I guess that a score of +30 or even only +20 would be better to assure that the following games will continue to be interesting !

Comments :

You may answer this method is interesting but it is not applicable because it changes the game strategie. Yes, you are right and it is really the goal in order to reach more interesting games. Remark that the draw+ method changes also the game strategie doesn’t it ?

Each player will avoid unuseful exchange which is a very good point.

A player will try to avoid imposing a draw by a combination with massive captures

The players will see some interest to accept a risky surrounding strategie in order to avoid exchanges when the opponent had made some agressive exchanges to take the center => a good point in order to see exciting games

Each player should follow the number of points on his (her) game sheet in order to be aware of the advantage situation. By the way it is possible to avoid this count by given the capture pieces to the appropriate player (i.e. the player who begins the capture serie).

Though I tried to cover only matches I guess it could be possible to use this method for a tournament and of course for a tie-break game between two players.

I hope you will find some interest in this discussion. Draugths is a very exciting game but, unfortunately, world championship do not give such good image to the world

[Juri]

Killer-draughts is the solution.
I hope next year Killer-draughts system will be checked somewhere.