In 2021, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura caused a stir with their ‘Double Bongcloud’ opening, in an online game which began 1 e4 e5 2 Ke2 Ke7, soon agreed drawn. Their act of flippancy, clearly spontaneous, drew a mixed response of laughter and tutting, but that game was unofficial and had no competitive significance.

Similarly, at the World Blitz Championship, held in Samarkand in December, a game between Daniel Dubov and Ian Nepomniachtchi saw the players agree to a draw after White’s 13th move. So far, so unremarkable, and many games at the tournament were concluded even faster. (Some events forbid early draws by agreement, but not in Samarkand).

The joke was that not a single pawn was moved. Instead, both players trotted their knights around, before returning them back to base, swapping them round in the process. The game went:

1 Nf3 Nf6 2 Nd4 Nd5 3 Nb3 Nb6 4 Nc3 Nc6 5 Ne4 Ne5 6 Ng5 Ng4 7 Nf3 Nf6 8 Ng1 Ng8 9 Nc5 Nc4 10 Na4 Na5 11 Nc3 Nc6 12 Nb1 Nb8 13 Nf3 Draw agreed

Evidently, this tickled the players, but each made several moves which were conspicuously stupid. It was easy to infer that the game was a sham, and that the players had agreed to draw before they began. That was later confirmed when their amicable pre-game chat turned out to have been recorded. Offering and accepting a draw is permitted, but doing it before the game has begun is not. ‘The players shall take no action that will bring the game into disrepute.’ An arbiter rarely invokes those ominous words, but this time he did, and instead of the standard half-point for a draw, both players were awarded a zero. That proved costly for Dubov, who went on to finish on 15.5/21, half a point shy of Magnus Carlsen who won the gold medal with 16/21.

In competitive chess, throwing games surely happens occasionally (for money, of course), and is universally frowned upon, but prearranged draws attract almost no social censure. A draw may well be the most likely result, and only rarely does it disadvantage other competitors, who tend to have more to lose by being overtaken by one or other player in a decisive game. Betting on chess is extremely rare, so that is not the motive either.

In fact, prearranged draws are sufficiently common, and so openly discussed, that I suspect some players are barely even aware that they are forbidden. In truth, there is no practical way to prevent them. Experienced tournament players will know several opening variations in which the optimal moves lead to a draw by repetition of position (see below). So players can have a legitimate reason to make these moves, but they also grant a kind of ‘plausible deniability’ to those who have prearranged the result.

Undoubtedly, the arbiter made the right call in the Dubov-Nepomniachtchi case. One cannot turn a blind eye to match-fixing (however benign) when it blows a raspberry right at you. But let’s not imagine that making an example of these players will eliminate the friendly draw. There are many pathways to peace.

Below, a beautiful game drawn by repetition. In 1988, Seirawan’s 9…Bxb5! was a brilliant innovation, but since then many have followed the same path. I assume some were genuine, while others were done with a nod and a wink.

Gyula Sax-Yasser Seirawan

World Cup, Brussels 1988 (see diagram)

1 e4 d6 2 d4 Nf6 3 Nc3 g6 4 f4 Bg7 5 Nf3 c5 6 Bb5+ Bd7 7 e5 Ng4 8 e6 fxe6 9 Ng5 Bxb5 10 Nxe6 Bxd4 11 Nxd8 Bf2+ 12 Kd2 Be3+ 13 Ke1 Bf2+ Draw agreed