[Event "Unrated Standard: Test"] [Site "SchemingMind.com"] [Date "2011.09.27"] [Round "-"] [White "An old friend"] [Black "Austin Lockwood"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "A50a"] [WhiteCountry "ENG"] [BlackCountry "ENG"] [GameID "293991"] 1. d4 { An old friend: Hmm, I can't offer a draw on the first move. While I don't think this should be encouraged, the rules of chess don't specify that you can't do it, so maybe it should be possible. } 1... Nf6 { Austin Lockwood: Hmmm... not sure; actually I *considered* supressing draws or resignations for the first five moves! Also, we don't allow resignation on your opponent's move. } { An old friend: Well, it was just something I noticed -- if someone wants do draw early, they'll offer on the second move. Anyway, not a big deal. As to disallowing early draws, I'm generally against imposing on people how to play their games; I don't like the Sofia rules at FIDE, so I'm not quite in favour of them at SM... } 2. c4= { Austin Lockwood: A few years ago, our top rated player at the time mass resigned 20-30 games against much lower rated players; it really messed up the ratings for a few months!... since then, I've been opposed to any "quick getout" (that's the reason for the "can't resign on your opponent's move" rule). } { Austin Lockwood: Oops, I did that from the main site :-( } { An old friend: But it did work well for my Current Games page! Very nice "tick" icon and it said "draw", and now let's see if it's still there or will it disappear... } { An old friend: Yep, disappeared, works fantastic! } { An old friend: Well, you can't really prevent that -- if someone wants to "pull a mass" on SM again, he will, resigning the games he can resign and just making random moves till move 5 (10, 30, ...) to be able to resign the rest. To me it's like with the cheating: you can either trust people not to do it and live with those who do, or lose sleep over something you are not able to entirely prevent anyway. Lost cause, kind of... } 1/2-1/2