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I am wondering if there are any statistics on rejected draw offers (say of GM games). Namely, what are the following percentages of the following results when a draw offer is declined:

  1. The side that offered the draw offer wins.
  2. The side that declined the draw offer wins.
  3. The game ended as a draw.

Technically there is a fourth result: the game has not ended yet at this moment. We may ignore this case for simplicity. For game with multiple draw offers, we may only consider the first draw offer.

By the way, this statistics may be useful in determining whether it is wiser to accept most draw offers or not. If the side that offers the draw wins more than the side that declines the draw offer, it might be wiser to accept a draw offer in an even game. (Here I am assuming that almost all GM's will not offer a draw if he/she has a clear disadvantage.)

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The simplest answer is "No" because draw offers are not retained. By that I mean that although the players may record draw offers on their scoresheets, that information is thrown away when the games are transcribed and saved.

In all events where norms are possible the organizer has to send the records of the games in electronic (pgn) format to FIDE. When the game inputters input a game they do this by using a program like Chessbase or Scid vs PC which gives the ability to enter a game using the mouse. Many of you will be familiar with doing this with your own games.

Adding extra information like draw offers is very time consuming and not a requirement. Hence no game inputters do this. The information is lost. The only time this information survives is when a game is annotated, perhaps by one of the players, using the original scoresheet, but this applies to only a tiny minority of GM games.

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    As an addendum: Players are REQUIRED by the FIDE Laws of Chess to record a draw offer (FLOC Art 8.1: "[...] Both players must record the offer of a draw on the scoresheet. [...]"). Strangely enough these appear to, indeed, ususally not be included in the submission to FIDE. As far as I know the PGN-Notation does not contain a dedicated "draw offer" apart from adding it as a comment. In my (limited!) experience in chess tournaments (German Chess Federation (DSB)), recording draw offers is not common.
    – Benjamin Raabe
    Commented Apr 15, 2020 at 13:14
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As Brian Towers noted, it'd be impossible for over the board GM chess. However, it might be possible to do this analysis on online games, as draw offers are recorded. I am not aware of any analysis about this currently available, but it's definitely possible.

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  • Great idea! Some statestics from chess.com or similar websites will surely be valuable.
    – Zuriel
    Commented Apr 15, 2020 at 20:51
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    lichess would be the easiest, as the data is publicly available via their API
    – pulsar512b
    Commented Apr 15, 2020 at 22:01

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