Unsportsmanlike and draw offers

Hello chess people

I would like to hear your opinions about sportsmanship and accepting or not accepting (or even offering) a draw in the following situations:

A) Your opponent obviously make a mouse slip and transforms his very easily won position into a very lost position. Then he offers you a draw.

B) The position on the board is totally blocaded  by a pawn chain, and there is only pawns and kings left. There is no way your opponent can penetrate the pawn chain. However you have 2 minutes left on the clock while your opponent only have 1 minute. You know you are able to move your king aimlessly around and make a simple pawn move just before the 50th move, and then win on time. Yor opponent offers you a draw.

C) Your opponent have outplayed you right from the opening to the endgame, where he now has an easily won position. However, he lost a lot of time due to a lost connection, and is about to loose on time. He offers you a draw.

In the three situations above. Is it unsportsmanlike to decline the draw?

Depending on your answers I may post new derived situations.

On a similar tac: I was recently browsing games on my phone and through a combination of tiredness and a slip on the screen resigned a game only to realise I'd selected the wrong one!

The game I resigned I was in a very strong positiona and had no reason to resign. I messaged the other player and let chess.com know and they have messaged him asking to reinstate the game. No reply. Either to my polite message or theirs. 

I think it's pretty poor not to let play continue and futhermore to ignore perfectly polite and reasonable communications. If it was the other way round I wouldn't hesitate to continue. 

To address the original questions: why would you want to win by accident? What's the point?

I'm not going to be the judge about whether or not something is unsportsmalike, but here's what I would do myself. In B I would definitely accept the draw. In C I would probably also accept it, but if I'm having a really bad day I might not, I have to admit. As for A, I have to say that in nearly all cases I honestly can't tell the difference between a mouse slip and a bad move. After all, in low level blitz games, anything can happen. In my past experiences I've seen a lot of stupid moves, and I've never considered the possibility that a bad move could have been a mouse slip. Perhaps another reason is that in all of the games I've played (around 700), I've only made maybe 4 or 5 mouse slips in total, and only once did the mouse slip have an effect on the game. But that said, if the move is blatantly a legit mouse slip (such as moving a piece one square short from a recapture), then I would probably accept the draw. However, this has never occurred in any of my actual games.

whoispaulmiller >> I don't say that is what I do. In fact I do not 

But I'm wondering if the causes for the win in these three very extreme situtations I posted (mouse slip, blocaded position, lost connection) is just a part of the game or not. If it is general considered to be a part of the game, I might consider not to accept a draw in these situations in the future.

Further... As I said, the posted situations are extreme. If these situations are not just considered a part of the game, then I will post new "less extreme" situations to find the limit. For instance sitation C) could be modified so that the reason for his time consumption is no longer due to lost connection, but simply because he thinks slow - Is it then still unsportsmanlike to decline a draw offer?

Offering or declining is ur choice though I personally wouldnt accept nor offer a draw in such situations.

macer75 >> Thanks for you reply. This make me think of a new situation. If we assume that it is unsportsmanlike to decline a draw offer due to a mouse slip. Then, what if both players time are very low? Then such mouse slip will occur more often - IS it then considered as a part of the game?

In that case, I would say it's not unsportsmanlike to decline the draw. In live games, and especially in blitz and bullet, time is part of the game. A player who thinks slowly and makes good moves is essentially sacrificing his time for a better position on the board. The idea is to obtain a sufficiently large advantage on the board so that his disadvantage in time becomes insignificant. In the revised example you have just provided, that advantage was not large enough, as it didn't allow the "winning" player to checkmate the "losing" player in time. Even though the "winning" player has an advantage on the board, the "losing" player's advantage in time is greater than the "winning" player's advantage on the board, so when you combine both factors together, the player with the weaker position but more time is at an overall advantage, and thus deserves to win.

Good point!

But earlier you said you would definetly accept the draw offer in situation B). Isn't there a great similarity between Situation B and what you just wrote about sacrificing time to obtain a better position - Then your two replies are contradictory.

I hadn't thought of that, but you're right!

I think the reason I would accept a draw offer in situation B is just because I don't like playing in such situations, not because I think it's unsportsmanlike. The way I see it, we often like to generalize about what constitutes sportsmanship, but we're playing actual games it isn't a very big consideration. Also, although this was not one of my main considerations, in situation B it is very much possible for the two sides to draw by repitition or 50 move rule if both have pre-move enabled.

The problem with A) is that sometimes its impossible to tell whether it was a mouse slip or just a shocking blunder...even world champions will occasionally slip up and allow mate in one (see below). There are cases where its obvious (e.g a case where Bb5 is a natural developing move, but Bc4 hangs the bishop to a d4 pawn), but sometimes people will just miss the stupidest things.

If the position becomes dead drawn I'll offer a draw/accept a draw unless the time is ridiculous (one player has 20-odd seconds to the other's 2 and a half minutes in a blitz game).

And the Kramnik game I mentioned - anyone can miss the stupidest things once in a while

A) If possible, I'd accept an opponent's request to take the move back; otherwise I'd accept the draw.

B) Since it has to be the opponent the one who closed the position to such an extent to reach the described situation (I prefer to lose than to "not play" a postion like that), I'd take the win on time.

C) I'd accept.

The worst ever is when you reach a won position and the opponent stops playing without resigning, forcing you to stay on the game till s/he loses on time in order to get your deserved point: that is really a stupid way to take some kind of ego revenge over an opponent who defeated you fair and square.

1. I don't really know what a mouse slip is anymore, so they are not so obvious to me. I have had my opponents claim mouse slip quite a bit. I recommend that the person who made the mouse slip to either play on, or resign.

2. Locked position is draw, so I would have no problem accepting a draw offer at any point.

3. Time management is part of the game, so no draw in that scenario:)

For me, a mouse slip is when the piece drops near the desirable square it should go to, or somewhere between the starting square and the desirable square (this is clearly meant for long range pieces, hence along a straight line).

Before accepting the take-back-move request (or draw offer), you can ask the opponent what was his/her intended move, so it's pretty easy to decide if it is a true mouse slip or really a blunder.

I always have mouse slips and I have to say it is really shitty when it happens. However I never offer a draw, I usually just say "woops mouse slip" and continue play. The other draws make sense in my opinion though.

Let's make it happen!

Yes, like castling, but I meant to convey that many people claim mouse slips--even a few times in one game. I would rather not decide on these problems, since if I make a mistake then I either play on or resign. In the end, I don't ask for anything but a game of chess, I don't need sympathy for my errors. A simple "hello" is nice, as well.

A mouse slip is at least in part the players fault and should be resolved by the players on a game to game basis. However connection loss is no ones fault and it sucks to lose or win that way. I dont know what the answer is but a draw or no contest rule should be at least considered.

Serious chess players don't ask for , nor grant takebacks . I count myself as a serious chess player . I cant tolerate people who ask for a takeback and then get mad at me when I don't give one and act like it is I that have done something wrong/unethical .  Such players need to learn the rules of chess and if they are prone to mouseslips then they need to slow down some or stop using pre-move .  I make mouseslips too and I never ask for a takeback , I resign if the slip warrants it . 

A - sometimes a mouse slip is obvious. If the guy was not lost or clearly worse before, I'll accept the draw. 

If he was slightly inferior, or if the position was double edged, I may probably not accept it, and explain why - as actually his mouse slip deprived me of play. But it depends even here - as  if we're in a series of games, or it's someone I know, I would still accept, as a mouse slip sucks (and one CAN tell. Some moves are really explainable only as such, especially if the opponent immediately says so). 

If it's me who made a mouse slip, I will state it but not offer a draw. I will wait for my opponent's response. If he's a cool guy he'll offer a draw .Of course if I was losing, I'll say "I was losing anyway". If I'm clearly worse I'll shrug it off.

B - what's the point, or the fun, to play on in such a position? If he has 7 seconds and me, two minutes, I may even offer the draw myself, not wait for him to offer it. There's just no play and I don't see the point in grabbing the time-win. 

If he doesn't take the draw in time, then I win and it's all ok because I offered. 

If it's me who is short on time and the player tries to squeeze the time win out of me, I will later block him and not play him again. 

C - Generally I tend to accept draw offers when I have awful positions but will win on time. Generally I don't offer them myself, but sometimes I do. 

On the other hand, if I'm clearly winning but short on time, I'll offer the draw when it's not yet clear that I won't make it - so that my opponent isn't asked to do me a favor, but to eliminate risks for both of us.