Bored to death? Too many draws!

[Arild Haugen]

The increasing number of draws in the recent years has caused some concern here, and in the latest issue of the Norwegian Magazine Morten Lilleøren raises some interesting proposals:
What about issuing half a victory for making a stalemate or also for cleaning the board while still having piece(s) left (plus Kings of course!)!  Interesting thoughts!? 
The triple-block system has finally solved the problem with DMD (Dead Man's Defense), but I think it is quite worrying that the number of drawn games is close to 100% in strong tournaments. In my experience most points are lost due to clerical errors! 

[Austin Lockwood]

ICCF Rules "1.3.1. Organizational rules applicable to all ICCF tournaments"

For multi-round and promotion tournaments, a positive score is required for a first place finish to be awarded. If no player in these type of tournaments achieves a positive score, then no player is awarded qualification to the next round or to the next higher class.

I wonder if we'll ever see a multi-round tournament where nobody qualifies for the final?

[Michael Blake]

I guess it comes down to whether you only enjoy a game if you win. I enjoy the opening research and much more with my games, for example the conversation and continuing friendship with previous opponents. Although server chess has all but ended a decent conversation with opponents there are still opportunities to renew friendships and make new friends during the game. For me this keeps correspondence chess alive. As an aside, major OTB tournaments with longer time controls also have high percentage of draws, perhaps the game is just slowly being solved.