Why Asking for a Draw is Wrong

We all play chess and we lose,win,and draw.Those are the right ways to end a game,but asking for a draw is just wrong.I've played more than 45 games and 5 tournaments and more than 10 people have asked for a draw.I'm here to say that if you ask for a draw,then you're too chicken to finish a game.There've been times where I thought that I would loose and wanted to quit the game,but I didn't and won about 70% of those games.So next time you play a chess game on chess.com and your opponent ask for a draw,say no and remember how bg of a chicken he/she is.

Or you just think the position is a draw... 

I have found this to be often true when my opponent is higher rated and offering me a draw. You should always be suspicious when this is the case. This isnt as often the case with lower rateds though. 

Sometimes a draw is a draw...it happens, but I've found that at lower ratings suggesting a draw can influence my opponent. I've won a few games that I thought I couldn't win when I was down a pawn, but with good squares under control and an actual draw looming in the future. In those cases, my opponent, thinking I was lost and desperate for a draw; refused the draw offer, over played and tried to make something out of nothing. And lost.

I'd never try that with a clearly stronger opponent.

an opponent once offered me a draw every move. eventually i accepted. THATS WRONG. but positions are sometimes  drawn as in puchiko above.

haha once you go to stronger tournaments, i see strong masters and experts offering draws by the fifteenth move and accepting. the only reason they offer draws is because they're mentally exhausted, or they both know it's a waste of time. who wants to win just because their opponent blundered. that's not what chess is about

this ridiculous. i offer draw when it obvious that it going to be draw. you knows what annoys me? when people refuse to accept the draw and force you to play until, what happens? yeah a freaking draw. not being chicken, just trying to save time.

Lower rated players ( no offense to OP--897 Live Chess) have trouble seeing an attack, much less a drawn position.  

It's fun to offer a draw at move 12 or so, in a position where the game is basically yet to start. They almost always decline, but then continue way more berserk than they would have otherwise.

There is a correct time to offer a draw, and there are times when one is lost and just wants to salvage it. In fact, there are many times in my games when draw offers have been good, or bad.

Bad: I was up a queen because my pawn had promoted, and my opponent suddenly offers me a draw. I agree that I should have dueled this person, but instead I simply won the game. You also know that it is a bad draw offer when your opponent resigns precisely two moves after offering the draw.

Good: I offered a draw in a queen ending when I was up a pawn. There was no way to avoid perpetual check without some sacrifices, after which I might lose. This player was also higher rated then me, so a draw was fine for both of us. Who says chess games can't draw?

A draw offer in a tournament situation should be a way of saving the time of playing out a dead position.

"Dead" does not mean "i'm pretty sure this is equal." Dead means "there is nothing meaningful left to be played for, no interesting moves to be made."

If I'm fairly certain I could easily instruct someone who has never played chess before on how to play the position (Just move your king back and forth between these two squares), then it's time to break out the draw offer.

I learned this lesson one month when I played in two tournaments, one rated and one unrated.

In the rated tournament, I was 3/3 going into the final round. I botched white's response to the Sicilian Pin counterattack and was down a pawn. I rallied and got a fairly strong position with material equality. I had a rook on the seventh and a bishop behind it for a discovered check. But everything he had was guarded, I couldn't see a good way to make use of the discovered check. The best I could do was trade down to an even-ish endgame, and I started to think "Well, an unbeaten score in this tournament would be amazing. I should just offer a draw." But I had this nagging feeling that I was missing something, so I held off.

After a few minutes of thinking, I realized that I was leaning toward offering a draw with a tournament-winning mate-in-one on the board. The draw would have cost me $65 in prize money and more importantly loads and loads and loads of embarrassment.

Later that month, I offered a draw in a tournament (unrated, thankfully, but a club tournament with a small cash prize on the line).  We were under two minutes each and it was a super-drawn rook and pawns ending. He offered me a draw and I declined on some very thin basis (something about if a certain exchange went a certain way, I'd have the outside passed pawn). He didn't say anything, but he had a little bit of a look on his face like he was insulted.  Two moves later, that exchange didn't go that way and so I offered a draw without hesitating or thinking, trying to be polite. Immediately after we shake hands, the TD points out that he had hung his rook on the last move.  

We ended up sharing first, so that hastily accepted draw cost me $25. I vowed never, ever again to take a draw offer because of social pressure, to be a total and complete draw nit.

Cool stories, amirite?

Been there.  I remember one game when the position was clearly drawn but the fellow wouldn't accept it.  I waited another 10 moves or so, thinking he'd see that nothing was happening, and made another draw offer that was refused.  After 31 moves I finally managed to get a repetition so I could claim the draw.

The guy was probably just too stupid to see that the game was drawn, but I suppose he could have had some silly macho hang-up about draws like the OP apparently does.

There's that fine line between offering a draw and begging for a draw, though. ;)

well

I disagree with you.

You have to respect the rules.

If don' t like this rule ( " asking drow") , try to change the rules with a good and logic motivation. Good work

I just noticed that the OP's account is less than 2 weeks old, and this is his only post.  All together, now, everybody say "Hi" to Haywood!  

 I agree.

Although I suppose in theory - 2 equally rated players - playing long enough - one may make an error and turn a draw into victory for the other.  Does that mean that the one is better than the other.. who knows.  Playing long enough any of us can make mistakes (at least I do!)..    If it is down to a board with no pawns, and only a bishop each for example.. or a rook each.. it is doubtful that one would win over the other. 

Realistically.. if one were that much better than the other then mate would have come sooner (or a the very least one would have more players remaining on board than the other at the endgame).  So if down to only one piece each; and king then a likelihood of draw is quite high in most situations.

My opponent "offered" a draw one time saying he was on the phone,, it was early in the game, I'm not good enough to know who was "winning" at the time, I was polite and accepted.