Draw By Agreement - Practical Considerations

Practical Considerations

Petrosian vs. Korchnoi, 1977, game 12
a b c d e f g h
8 8
7 7
6 6
5 5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
a b c d e f g h
Black is winning but offered a draw.

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:

    History not used is nothing, for all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you don’t use the stuff—well, it might as well be dead.
    —A.J. (Arnold Joseph)