AbigailII: Ah, that's the thing. Who determines that the position is a draw? The players do, right? Don't you see a conflict of interest in this during a tournament? If agreed to draws are allowed, I believe some of the power to have them should be taken from the players involved. Have it go to a tribunal and change the procedure for asking for a draw. Instead of asking your opponent for a draw, you make the announcement it is a draw and have the tournament draw tribunal check your game out as it continues to be played. Or you be required to play more moves or you demonstrate that your opponent can't win the game. Whether or not you can win is no longer your concern. I'd certainly no longer allow the person asking for a draw to be allowed to win the game if his draw is turned down. Just changing this aspect of asking for draws would discourage a lot of early draw offers. Their opponent would be free to decline and then would be able to play on knowing that they couldn't lose the game. This would make a draw offer happening only when the person was certain that he was right.

From what I understand of a game that Ed and Alex have going right now, Ed should've resigned or Alex should've accepted a draw a few moves back. Now, how can that be? I'm glad they're continuing the game until all doubt is removed, even if it's not being done in the most sportsmanlike manner.

Yes, players could purposely start repeating positions during a game to get their draw out of it. I'm sure that would require collusion and could be dealt with. Everything else in Chess is analyzed, a repeated position could come under more scrutiny if they started happening more.

Don't they have tournaments where the time is increased if more moves are needed and all the moves that were required to be made in the allotted have been made? I know there's plenty of tournaments that only give you so much time for the whole game regardless of how many moves the game takes, but it seems to me I've heard of tournaments where they give you a couple hours to make say 40 moves. If the game continues after the 40 moves have been made, they'd add time to the clock and get another move count going. I'm sure something could be worked out if time was a problem caused by changing the draw rules. If it was harder to get draws, I'm thinking games would be played tougher and the players wouldn't plan on an easy game knowing they couldn't expect to hold there own and then offer a draw at the opportune time. That should make the Chess better too.

Your question of me about playing 'til being mated isn't easy to answer and has nothing to do with draws. So I'll not address it now. When you resign, you get zero for a score. A draw can get you zero or a half point depending on the rules of the match or tournament. When it's nothing, as I've seen them do in two player matches, is the percentage of draws the same as when the same two players play each other when the draws count as a half point? And how 'bout when different players are compared? I'd think the ratio would be the same, but perhaps there is a difference. Anybody know?