Friday, June 24, 2011
Trying to win on time?
In this 15 minute game on FICS (no increment) I moved into what I believe to be a drawish bishop endgame. I had under 2 minutes on my clock, opposed to my opponent's 7. I had the bad bishop and less active king, but was up 1 pawn and had everything defended. I offered my opponent numerous draws, but they declined. They either thought they could win the position, or win on time. I got the feeling they were trying to win on time because they began moving extremely quickly. It's worth pointing out that 54.Bb6 is a blunder which my opponent didn't capitalise on, perhaps they were too busy looking at my remaining time?
I think this game demonstrates an important lesson, regardless of whether or not my opponent was actually trying to win on time. Trying to beat your opponent on time is pretty low, and if you push too much it can blow up in your face. I've seen a lot of players refuse draws in equal positions and try to beat their opponents on the clock, and consider it to be poor sportsmanship.
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One point though... if you are playing a time controlled game, winning on time is legitimate. Particularly a shorter interval like 15 0...
ReplyDeletedoes 40. a4 work? It's probably still a draw but I will always go for the win with a pawn up, although it's a bit scary to try and push a win sometimes because you can easily end up losing a position like that even with a pawn up... but even so, unless I'm 100% it's a draw and know why, I'd go for the win if I were you.
ReplyDeleteThe sportsmanship stuff is a hard one - I think in this position if his aim was to get the rating points he should have taken the draw, but sometimes it's interesting to see if you could push a win out of something. When playing against friends, I'd always take a draw in a lost position like this because it's more friendly.
Perhaps you should play with increments? Instead of 15 0, try playing 15 2? To me time control is part of the game.
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