Practical Considerations
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Sometimes practical considerations are taken into account. In 1977 Viktor Korchnoi and former World Champion Tigran Petrosian played a twelve-game quarter-final Candidates Match to ultimately determine the challenger for the 1978 World Championship. After eleven games Korchnoi was leading by one point, so he only needed a draw in the final game to advance to the semi-finals. Korchnoi, as Black, was winning this game but he offered a draw after 40 moves. According to Edmar Mednis, it was "gentlemanly and the practical thing to do" (Mednis 1993:206–7). Korchnoi went on to unsuccessfully challenge Anatoly Karpov for the World Championship.
Read more about this topic: Draw By Agreement
Famous quotes containing the word practical:
“After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)