The wanikani meaning explanation doesn’t make any sense to me: “When you pull something and “separate”(分ける) it, you are making everything even. In a game, this would be a tie or a draw.”
How does pulling and separating something make it even? Scratching my head on this one for ages…
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I’m not sure if you’re puzzling over the ‘pulling and separating’ or just the ‘separating’ part, so I’ll discuss both.
As for ‘pulling’ the context WK is using in its explanation is in regards to the game ‘tug-of-war’ as specifically noted in the NOTE below the ‘Reading’ section. So there are times when neither group can pull the rope to their side which ends up in a ‘draw’ or ‘tie.’
The ‘separate’ part is not as clear. Think of it this way, whenever you ‘pull’ something, in a sense you are ‘separating’ that something as well. For example, if you pull a nail from a piece of wood, you separate that nail from the wood. If you pull a swimmer out of a pool, you separate the swimmer from the pool. Hence, when you ‘pull and separate’ unsuccessfully in tug-of-war, you end up in a draw or tie.
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Hey that is a really good explanation - thank you so much for taking the time to help me. The tug-of -war example makes it clear what they were getting at and I saw no mention of that. There is no NOTE below the reading section for meaning, did you write that note yourself or am I missing something? For me it’s blank except for the message - ‘click to add note’.
In case it helps, another way to think of “pulling and separating something” to “make it even” is with the example of a bow and arrow (引き分け apparently comes from archery):
When the bowstring is drawn back from the bow, the forces of push and pull are even – neither side “wins”.
From here:
…弓を押し、弦を引くことにより、左右均等の力で押し引きすることから、勝負の付かないことが「引き分け」になったとされています。
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Even the English word “draw” originally means “to pull.”
“Tie” is sort of the opposite of “to separate,” though…
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Thanks for your help! Very interesting and very useful comments. I just read the link you shared and now it’s clear - this bit solved the ‘separate’ part for me:
“…the state in which you draw the arrow and aim just before releasing the arrow is called ai,'' and the moment you release the arrow is called "separation''. This comes from the Buddhist term kaisha déngri’’ (those who meet will decide to separate), and there is also a deep story about the relationship between a bow and an arrow, in which they are always released (separated) when they meet.”
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I will have to ask Wanikani why all my NOTES are blank - I just assumed that they were there for me to write notes. An update perhaps? Does anyone else have all blank notes? Anyway I’m going to write myself a long note right now on 引き分け. Thanks very much for your help.
MY BAD!!! I looked at my NOTE again and it dawned on me that I MUST HAVE written that note for myself for the VERY reason that is making you confused!!! 
I just jumped to the conclusion that WK provided it because I didn’t recall writing that note myself. Actually I still don’t, BUT, as you said, that NOTE only gets filled by us…
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Haha! Thanks for clearing that up, I thought I was missing out on useful notes.