Time to bring back mixed tournaments

[Dan Scoones]

The recent Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund saw a very high proportion of draws: 20 out of 28 games played. This is not a good outcome for the reputation of world chess. In my opinion it is time for chess organizers to return to the competitive model that dominated the world of international chess until 1979 or 1980: the mixed tournament. What is wrong with inviting four or five grandmasters, the same number of international masters, and a couple of untitled players to get together for a couple of weeks and play a single round-robin? As a chess fan, I don't want to see top GMs draw with each other for the Nth time; I want to see them forced to keep pace with each other by beating IMs "on demand." Right now I am enjoying the book of the Groningen 1946 international tournament. What a mixed bag of competitors... so interesting! The whole thing was in doubt until the very last round, when the leader Mikhail Botvinnik was defeated by Miguel Najdorf, and Botvinnik's closest pursuer Max Euwe was defeated by Alexander Kotov. Kevin Spraggett has just written about the Dortmund result on his blog: http://www.spraggettonchess.com/wojt...dortmund-yawn/. He doesn't offer a solution. Well, that's what I'm suggesting here...

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Time to bring back mixed tournaments

The recent Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund saw a very high proportion of draws: 20 out of 28 games played. This is not a good outcome for the reputation of world chess. In my opinion it is time for chess organizers to return to the competitive model that dominated the world of international chess until 1979 or 1980: the mixed tournament. What is wrong with inviting four or five grandmasters, the same number of international masters, and a couple of untitled players to get together for a couple of weeks and play a single round-robin? As a chess fan, I don't want to see top GMs draw with each other for the Nth time; I want to see them forced to keep pace with each other by beating IMs "on demand." Right now I am enjoying the book of the Groningen 1946 international tournament. What a mixed bag of competitors... so interesting! The whole thing was in doubt until the very last round, when the leader Mikhail Botvinnik was defeated by Miguel Najdorf, and Botvinnik's closest pursuer Max Euwe was defeated by Alexander Kotov. Kevin Spraggett has just written about the Dortmund result on his blog: http://www.spraggettonchess.com/wojt...dortmund-yawn/. He doesn't offer a solution. Well, that's what I'm suggesting here...

The recent Canadian Closed was criticized for this very kind of thing, having a wide range of player strengths competing including below 2000 ELO. So it seems many people feel that "championship" events should not have this. Well, most tournaments are "championship" events, so how does one draw the line?

I understand your motivation, Dan, I also detest endless GM draws. Just a month or so ago, Wayne Komer was reporting on the Rapid / Blitz events in Paris and Leuven, and it was such a refreshing change because so many games were 1-0 or 0-1.

There needs to be a way of drastically reducing draws in slow chess. But that would require some kind of chess rule change -- blasphemy to most chess players.

[Vlad Rekhson]

Re: Time to bring back mixed tournaments

Comparing to other super tournaments, Dortmund actually has been relatively mixed as there were some really high rated ones together with some very strong GMs that are not "super." I did like a tournament a couple of years ago when Carlsen and other top players played in an Open, seems quite fun and a bit of breath of fresh air.