Word.ws English Dictionary

draw death

draw death noun: the phenomenon of draws becoming more prevalent among professional chess players, potentially leading to a loss of popular interest in competitive chess.

Noun

draw death (uncountable)

  1. The phenomenon of draws becoming more prevalent among professional chess players, potentially leading to a loss of popular interest in competitive chess.
    • The memorization of opening theory and the intensive study of an opponent's oeuvre so dominate the modern game that when two grand masters square off, the first twenty moves unfold like a stale sitcom plot. Players often lament that "draw death" is killing the game.2002 December, Rene Chun, “Bobby Fischer’s Pathetic Endgame”, in The Atlantic
    • Artificial intelligence has heightened chess’s old fear of "draw death", where the game is analysed to the degree that wins disappear.2021 November 26, John Gapper, “Chess faces stalemate in its match with machines”, in Financial Times

Questions about draw death

What does draw death mean?
Draw death means the phenomenon of draws becoming more prevalent among professional chess players, potentially leading to a loss of popular interest in competitive chess.
What part of speech is draw death?
Draw death is a noun.

Words near draw death in the dictionary

  1. draw bridge
  2. draw bridges
  3. draw bridle
  4. draw cuts
  5. draw dead
  6. draw death
  7. draw distance
  8. draw distances
  9. draw down
  10. draw even
  11. draw filing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: draw death (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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