Resigning

Sorry I don't agree with playing on for the sake of it. I resign in lost positions here and OTB - so why don't people just man up and take it on the chin, you lost, move on, start another game or rematch.

I think its people like steve45 who lack chess etiquette by playing on.. dragging the game out hoping that their opponent might forget about the game or just drop dead! Overall I feel playing on is insulting to your opponent.

I could almost understand it OTB, but here when you have 7 days to play a move.

Originally posted by plopzilla
Sorry I don't agree with playing on for the sake of it. I resign in lost positions here and OTB - so why don't people just man up and take it on the chin, you lost, move on, start another game or rematch.

I think its people like steve45 who lack chess etiquette by playing on.. dragging the game out hoping that their opponent might forget about the game ...[text shortened]... our opponent.

I could almost understand it OTB, but here when you have 7 days to play a move.

Haven't looked at the game in question, but my general and personal thoughts on resigning would be I usually do so when the position is lost, I have nothing to gain from playing on, and I have confidence my opponent shall convert the win. If I feel there is something I may learn by playing on even in a lost position, I will do so, as often I want to see how my opponent converts the win, especially if it is the type of position I am poor at converting in won positions myself.

Also, if it's been a tightly fought contest and the winning the game means something to me, I don't see anything unsporting in making the player convert the win. Not everyone will be able to, and I generally only resign in such positions when I feel the opponent can convert it from there. If it's a friendly game, I'll probably resign once the position is clearly a won one for the other side, mainly because it's a friendly game and I'm far more interested in a rematch than dragging on things in a lost position. Of course the flipside of that is you may be unintentionally allowing your friend to become sloppy by depriving him of the practice to take the game beyond reach.

I do however view it as quite unsporting when an opponent who has been regularly playing moves, suddenly stops making any, once the position becomes lost for them, while also refusing to resign the game. In a portion of these games there may be extenuating circumstances offline, and I understand that, but imagine that's the exception rather than the rule in most cases. Also when said player continues to play on in one or more of their other games while refusing to do anything in mine, it's clear what sort of player I'm dealing with.

And last but not least are the chancers, I suppose. Opponents who play on in lost positions, most likely hoping for you to slip up or blunder. I suppose it's good practice in being able to steel your resolve and convert the win, as well of course as there being an outside chance they are playing on to learn from you in how to convert the win, but I can't help but admit to a bit of frustration on occasion when such a game is keeping one of your active game slots occupied.

In any event, my 2 cents

Originally posted by plopzilla
Sorry I don't agree with playing on for the sake of it. I resign in lost positions here and OTB - so why don't people just man up and take it on the chin, you lost, move on, start another game or rematch.

I think its people like steve45 who lack chess etiquette by playing on.. dragging the game out hoping that their opponent might forget about the game ...[text shortened]... our opponent.

I could almost understand it OTB, but here when you have 7 days to play a move.

Maybe we need a claim win-button to solve these issues. 😛

For subscribers this is an absolute non-issue. You can just leave the game alone and wait until your opponent moves. When they do then you get the pleasure of realising you have a won game and can then go back to the horror of the rest of the games you are losing (well that's my experience of it).

If you aren't a subscriber then you only have 6 game-slots so I suppose you might want to free them up when a game is coming to a close. Some people will have little sympathy for this situation (subscription = problem solved). If you want your opponent to play a move more frequently than once a week ... then consider not starting 7-day timeout games.

The rating system is largely used so subscribers can enter the appropriate banded tournaments. If you don't intend to subscribe then your rating might be less of an issue. You 'know' you have won this game. If you offer a draw (or even resign) then your rating will suffer a little, but you will be able to start a new game and since you 'know' you have won the game there isn't a problem.

Originally posted by plopzilla
Sorry I don't agree with playing on for the sake of it. I resign in lost positions here and OTB - so why don't people just man up and take it on the chin, you lost, move on, start another game or rematch.

I think its people like steve45 who lack chess etiquette .

I think it's pretty clear that if plopzilla does not want a game to continue, he should resign. Problem solved.

Oh wait, that will affect his rating, won't it? Oh no! His Red Hot Pawn rating will be 20 points lower than it might otherwise be! What will people think?!?!

At an OTB game, I had my opponent look at me and say "Why don't you resign" when I was obviously winning. I did not say anything. I was about to resign if he can prove he could checkmate me in a few moves. He did not see it. So, I continued playing. He stalemated me. He said, "You are just lucky." I replied: "I have done this many times before." His buddy knew me. The next day, my opponent apologized to me! When he asked me to resign, I played much harder.

This game is an example of why it may pay off to play on in a lost position (special thanks to DeepThought for correcting the pgn viewer for me, with apologies to those who already saw this):

Big Dog has it right.

"Who decides when the game is lost."

As for examples of won games being chucked...I have thousands on here.
I've posted lads resigning in won positions!

If you feel annoyed if a lad is playing on then the worst thing you can do is tell them.
You are almost certainly going to get them playing on and on and on....
(I never have nor will, then again a lad playing does not annoy me.)

And we must not forget games like this. Game 9645063
Black appears not to have known how mate with Bishop and Knight.
The game is drawn on the 50 move rule with Black two moves away from giving mate.

So play on, you never know, especially on here where the winning player
can have 30-40 other games on the go (and is annoyed because you are playing on.)

Checkmate is the aim of the game and on here that is followed to the rule
with many games going the full distance after 80+ moves.

I think 80+ gives a good indication of people playing on because they want to.
By then middle game attacks are over and we are in endings.
Lost endings rarely go to checkmate. Once a lad a sees pawn that cannot
be stopped the game is usually resigned. (in OTB chess.)

RHP games ending in checkmate after 80 moves from my RHP DB of 3½ million games..
7,519 games have ended in checkmate.

On a 5 million game OTB database (Standard issue from ChessBase I½ million more games than RHP)
2,801 games have ended in checkmate.

That number I thought was is rather high in one v one chess, (as opposed to
the one v many on here.) A quick scan through the list shows leterally
100's of under 12's to under 8's games included ending in check mate. (Bless them all.)

Also in that ChessBase disc 31 checkmates are given as draws! (I've corrected the above figure.) That is just recording erros.

I'm happy to report that the RHP database has no such errors.

Originally posted by greenpawn34

That number I thought was is rather high in one v one chess, (as opposed to
the one v many on here.) A quick scan through the list shows leterally
100's of under 12's to under 8's games included ending in check mate. (Bless them all.)
.

Hi Tv.

One v many.

In an OTB game you playing one to one. You are there at the board.
Your concentration (should be ) focused on that one game at the one moment.

Here you can be playing 'many' games at once. You are infact conducting
a simultaneous display against other conducting a simultaneous display.

Also these games are played over a period of time when you leave the board
for days and come back again. Hence all the blunders.

8 year old - 12 year old children's games are in the datasbase. Of course some/most/all
of these OTB game will go to checkmate. I've no problem with that but it does give a
lop-sided view. Kids usually always to play to checkmate. (hence the 'Bless them'l comment.)

I wonder what would happen if you were playing one to one OTB v a kid and you told
them to resign. I think Mummy and Daddy would suddenly appear and Daddy may be
a 16 stone weight lifter.......

Personally I find it very relaxing to finish off an easily won game, a bit like freewheeling downhill on a bike after you've spent ten minutes puffing and panting to reach the top.

I had two opponents play on until mate in over the board games this season. Both of them were aged under 16 (one was a reigning British Champion!) and it didn't annoy me in the slightest. In the old days, when I used to actually play chess on RHP, I felt the same way when someone on here carried on until the bitter end, I could never understand why people like Skeeter got so upset by it.

Choosing when to resign (or not) is the only power left to the person losing the game, surely you shouldn't begrudge them that small consolation?

Hi Data Fly,

I know you do some coaching with the youngsters.

Ever witnessed an adult telling a kid he should resign.

I've played on to allow the mate if I've been caught in a middle-game combo
and I think it's rather cute. It's a way of saying 'good play'. and it is a fitting end.

On the other hand I hated it when they do resign and I've not finished off
mating the lad with sac/sac/mate trick.