Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Basic idea is this.  One player feels the game is going to end in a draw,
so they grab draw rights.  If the game ends in a draw, or they win, they
get half the points they normally wound for a win (their opponent gets
none).  If their opponent actually wins the game after doing this, their
opponent gets 1.5 points for the win (and the player who grabbed draw
rights gets nothing).

You do not want to grab draw rights if there is a chance to win, because
you cost yourself half your normal score, plus give your opponent more
points if they win.+

Draw costing both sides .5 point can work if playing with a larger pool of
players.  If it comes down to the final two players playing for points, or
like in the world championship, it isn't going to gain much doing this.

As it is now, draws are draws.  People thought maybe to evaluate positions
and value of pieces left or material captured as a tiebreaking mechanism. 
But now, it isn't that.  One way that might be best, if wanted secondary
scoring, is to go with time on clock left, with player with more time after
draw state is left, meeting the secondary win condition.

Stalemate as win would be a variant after gm Lasker thinking a century ago. [ Hey a Variant courtesy of the two powers Chess Cafe and Chessbase -- remember the Tim Harding Chess Cafe article a short 14 years ago 1998 ''Bring Back Free Castling,'' linked at end? Suggested using that and the article linked here following is the cv *OrthoChess 8x8 with Italian free castling and Lasker stalemate a win*! ]
____________
Http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8302. There current,
Stalemate discussion reaches the cautious online citadel of Chess, with
good historical background supporting the article. But don't expect any
leadership from Chessbase this teens decade, anymore than the last
'Aughts' decade, in the like of presenting, for instance, some historic
Raumschach or Jetan or even a knotty Carrera compound much beyond 
Seirawan Chess.  Those
three possibilities as topics are way too extreme for august cultured Chessbase, though they are respectively
100, 100 and 400 years old in their solid CV categories (Jetan too now
become important class itself of short-rangers with many a subvariant,
whilst Raumschach can represent all 3ds and other geometries).  As for
more accurate history, those Carrera Centaur (bn) and Champion (rn) are 400
years old around this very year 1612-17/2012, and in a perfect world would be
common thread within a top-of-the-line Chessbase.  Another milestone: T.R.
Dawson Grasshopper and Nightrider are 100 years old of year 1912, from when
variantists themselves were extremely cautious to invent and throw out a
new piece-type out of full respect for their comrades; rejecting a thousand
p-ts for the one Nightrider time-tested. 
Http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kibitz31.txt.

More history from Chessbase that forty years ago this week started
Fischer-Spassky, http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8320.