Originally posted by meanmicro yes thats the one ,and it means technically they have a bye in the first round .
now if we all did that the second round would become the first, if you are not going to play fairly in a torny why bother at all???
Originally posted by MontyMoose My exact strategy for most of my games. But when I offer the draw at that point, my opponents laugh and point out I'm a knight and pawn down. 😳 :'(
I agree, its unsportsmanlike. We have a precedent in real life: Miles vs Reuben
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Miles
"Once, in the last round of a tournament (Luton, UK, 1975), with Miles needing a draw for first place, and his opponent, Stewart Reuben wanting a draw for a high placing, he agreed a draw without playing any moves. The arbiter decided to give both players no points for this non-game; the players claimed this "game" had been played often, when players pre-arranged a draw - this was the only time it had been scored correctly, rather than playing out some anodyne non-moves. This sparked a hefty amount of correspondence in British chess journals."
However, its not uncommon in real life since there are no black and white pieces. Just grey outcomes
I've only had one pre-arranged draw, when my opponent and I moved our knights in and out, thus repeating the starting position three times. In another tournament, my opponent (who was rated 400 points higher than me) offered a draw after 3 moves (which I accepted), but in that case it was not pre-arranged.