If I go down a minor piece I am assuming I picked up at least a pawn or two for it. I immediately think can I trade off all his pawns after he tries trading down. A single minor piece can not mate
Play on. The loser is the person who makes the last mistake, not the first.
See how much compensation you can find. You may have accidentally played a brilliant sacrifice! :) Even if the compensation you are able to create is not enough to even up the game, it may be enough to create drawing chances and, with any second-rate play by the opponent, even winning chances!
StarJock> For instance, if someone resigns quickly, do they also give up easily when confronting a setback or rejection when trying something new in life?
You have it backwards. Folks who resign hopeless positions are able to accept a setback, learn from it, and move on... folks who play on are in denial.
Maybe search a chess forum for the answer: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/what-to-do-if-you-bungled-the-opening-game
Whoa, recursion!
I'd resign.
Likeforests, it's your assumption that I described a "hopeless position". My original question was about loss of a minor piece, stating nothing about the position. I also asked about reponse when playing opponents rated higher and lower than your rating. The decision, as others have said, is more involved than resigning in all games, as soon as you lose a minor piece.
StarJock> Likeforests, it's your assumption that I described a "hopeless position".
StarJock, blundering a whole knight or bishop in the first twelve moves is hopeless against my typical opponents. Playing on in such circumstance isn't fun for me or my opponent. It also gains me less knowledge and rating points than recooperating or studying tactics.
Every rule has exceptions. I'm coaching a player under USCF 1000 and I advise them to play on a piece down, because at their rating it's often a recoverable mistake.
:: checking my database ::
This happened to me exactly once in OTB or correspondence chess in the past year, February '08. These rare cases aren't worth losing sleep over.
Likeforests: Your rating of 2000+ puts you in the top 2% of the people on Chess.com! That's 1 in every 50 people. Two players in a game at that rating (1) very rarely blunder a piece and (2) should probably resign, as you say, in the rare instance that they make a blunder.
My question was really addressed to all players on Chess.com! The other 49 in each group of 50 players. And especially to the "average club" player rated at I expect 1200 to 1500.
Play on. One peice is not enough to win if you manage to swap everything else off. Chances of getting a draw or better are remote, but being down one peice isn't quite enough to get me to resign. A peice and a pawn though and I would be seriously considering resigning.
tactics > material
ive blundered away peices in the opening. i try to end the game ASAP with tactics and forcing mate.
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