Re:The World Chess Championship is an anachronism
by prakashk on Wednesday November 06, 2013 @01:04PM
(#6684161)
> ... every half point bring him closer to winning a match, and players are therefore incentivized to play for a draw.
This tendency could be discouraged by making wins more weighted realtively than draws: win = 2 points (or, may be 1.5 pts), draw = .5 pts, loss = 0 pts.
Your comment about rewarding consistent but rarely brilliant versus uneven but great bring up another interesting nuance about matches versus tournaments. Fischer complained that once a player gets ahead in a match, there is no motivation to play fighting chess because every half point bring him closer to winning a match, and players are therefore incentivized to play for a draw. In a tournament, that usually isn't the case since the leader will typically have a few players nipping at his heels.