| David Kane 2007-01-30, 8:26 pm |
| The recently concluded Corus 2007 is one of the chess world's premier events.
One of its features is the 250 Euro "Public Prize" awarded for "the most elegant
or most interesting game" in the GM sections (A, B, or C). These are voted-on by
all chess lovers via the Internet. While many people concede that short GM draws
are boring, we frequently hear the "hard-fought" draw praised. What is the
evidence?
According to the Corus website, drawn games received votes in just 3 rounds. The
percentage totals were 21, 22, and 11 in rounds 3, 4, and 6 respectively. If one
assumes an equal number of votes per round, then drawn games received just 4.1%
of the votes, compared to 95.9% for decisive games.
The actual draw percentages were 61%, 44%, and 36% for Corus A, B, and C, for an
overall average of 49%. This means that decisive games were 22 times as likely
to receive votes as draws. (This ratio would be even higher if we considered
that most of the votes were for games in the "A" section.)
The obvious conclusion is that to chess lovers following the Corus tournament,
decisiveness is an important factor in making a chess game elegant or
interesting.
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