Opponent: I Should Resign on move 9 a piece down. Agree?

 At move 36 he says to me, "Just resign You're wasting my time."  And then subsequently,  "You should have resigned on move 9".   Actually he should have said move 11.

So really my only question is, Do you agree or disagree with him?  I thought it would be useful for educational purposes to see what percentage of chess.com members actually agree with him.

I probably won't read much of the thread at all except to tally votes here. I'm not a very good chess player, that's a given  - no need to point that out.  That's why I hardly ever post.  So just answer the question, that would be great.

Its incredible to me, that he saw this 25 minute game as some sort of imposition I imposed on him because I did not grant him his rightful win when he gets a piece up. Will this delusion live forever at chess.com?  Enquiring minds want to know.

Oh, also I asked him what his education level was, and he said he was going to Berkeley.  So as a second question  you could indicate if you think he does.

My personal belief is that he pointed to the ninth move because at that point it was quite obvious to even the most mediocre player that the rook too was lost.

Being a little more experienced in the chess game I feel I should tell you that I don't think that playing a clearly lost game is going to improve neither your skill or that of your opponent.

I think the rest of the game was a waste of time on both parts, the fact that you already know that many here agree with me should convince you of the veridicity of my statement.

You were in your rights to continue the game, no doubt, but it would have been more gentlemanlike to give up.

As for the level of his education I don't think the game and the chatting alone can make conclusive proofs of that, I fear you will have to add more evidence if you want us to reach a more reliable judgement in that area.

Wow.  OK Karpov.  You're on record.  Thanks.  This should be good.

I somehow don't seem to able to grasp the meaning of this lately post of yours.

I would grandly appreciate it if you would be so kind as to explain it to me.

By my count, you're down an exchange and a pawn, with a passive position, not down a piece. If you're playing 5 minutes or faster, don't resign. If you're not rated 1800+, don't resign. Sure, it's lost for black with best play, but neither of you are going to approach 'best play' here, and people have come back from more than an exchange down. A GM should absolutely resign there playing another GM, but as that's not the case...play on until you are resigned to the fact that you're going to lose. Then resign. As long as you have ideas and things to try, it's ok to keep playing.

Well said. He should have just done what the rest of us do and get 7 queens before beating someone who doesn't resign.

To Karpov1234 -

I'm just incredulous about your opinion - don't be insulted by that, esp if you're ranked a lot higher than me.  Needless to say I understand with best play that I CANNOT win in that position - that's OBVIOUS. So obviously if I get a piece down, I'm hoping that he slips up at some point in the next 25-30 moves,  Unrealistic?  I don't think so.  Did you check our rating?

But if anyone thinks I should have resigned, don't be intimidated into not saying so.  I really want to know how many people at chess.com agree with him - because I know its A LOT, I just want to know how many.

You shouldn't resign on the 9th move - it's still early on in the game and losing a piece could have been part of your plan for all he knew. I normally do resign when I'm heavily down in material and I'm playing someone a lot better than me who I plainly won't be able to draw against. But when I'm winning, I prefer to actually prove to myself that I can checkmate them and I like the game to be drawn out, because I like thinking about how to make my attack most effective, etc. Besides he could easily of messed up in a few moves anyway.I don't win often in this game and when I do I like to have a tough opponent, not one that resigns in a few move lol.

However if you're talking about something like 50 moves with just your king against a whole load of pieces moving up and down the board, then yeah that is ridiculous, but it don't sound like that was the situation here

Lol some of the stupidest people i've ever met, were some of the most educated! :)

Karpov_1234:

"Decide for yourself what is sportmanslike and what is not, why are you pursuing such knowledge as that???"

It would be useful to know, that say 40% of chess.com members (or whatever it is) think I should have resigned on move 9 a piece down, against a low 1400's rated player.  I like knowledge, it would be useful to know, if only to ponder in  amazement, or for discussion purposes, "Check this out, you're not going to believe it, but..."

As I say, I know it has to be a lot. Probably should not have intimidated prospective respondants though by mocking their opinion in advance.  Hopefully they'll respond anyway,  because chess players in general above a certain modest ranking have a superiority complex, so hopefully they're impervious to intimidation as I want their opinion

I should add, I don't resign because it's unsportsmanlike etc. I enjoy playing until the end and I also learn something from it.

I resign because if i've done something like lost my queen on the 4th move, I can't bear to play on because the board is going to start looking more and more like a car crash and it is just too excruciating to bear slowly and painfully losing :D

I should also add, that asking someone to resign is also unsportsmanlike (although on this site when people insist on playing right to the end with just a king moving up and down the board, i just think dude save yourself the humiliation lol)

I think you should resign in a game if you think there is almost no chance that you can get something from the game. But you have every right to play on whether you think that or not. 

In this case, as has been pointed out you were not a piece down, merely losing the exchange (bishop for rook). Given your ratings was there a good chance you could get something from the game. Absolutely. It always likely that further mistakes of a similar nature would occur. So play on, and enjoy the game.

1) It is unsportsmanlike for one player to demand that another player resign. If a player is considering resigning, then he needs to intitiate it himself.

2) Just because your opponent was unsportsmanlike in demanding that you resign, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have resigned once your position got hopeless.

3) IMO, the game still looks playable (especially at you and your opponent's levels) through about move 30. But after that point, then yeah I would have probably resigned if it were me.

4) If it is any game type below standard time control, then there is no reason to ever resign. You can be three Queens down in a fast game and still end up beating your opponent with a time out (or a major screw up due to time pressure).

To corum (#17) - He also picked up a pawn with Bxf7 on 10, so it was 3 points total, one piece.

On another note:  32. Nc6 was a big blunder by me, Nf7, would have kept me in the game a good bit longer probably.

Also, he was taking a long time on each move, to make sure he didn't blunder.  He was behind me on time for the first 2/3 of the game (sometimes by as much as 3 minutes - subsequent to that I started going down on time.)  But sure, if you're really agonizing about every single move after getting up a piece, you should be able to pull it out.  Maybe some people resent you making them go through that effort, who knows.

After whites 12th move (Qxa8) In a mere 3 moves black brings pressure on whites position ...Qc7 ...Bd6 followed by ...Rf8. whites only queen move (Qd5) is met by ...Bb7 . Is this enough who knows you attack not resign !! 

mateolotist - awesome, thanks.

You definately could have resigned at any point past move 10 being down the exchange, but you fought it out and aint nothing wrong with that.

3 main factors determine if you should resign.

1) Opponents time left

2) How bad you are down

3) Opponents skill level

Higher your opponents skill, longer the time left, and the worse you are down determine if you should resign.

NO resigning until you are ready. Especially if the opponent is calling for one, no chance then, bring on the 6 queens.