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PerfectGent: I've always wondered why you resigned in this position.

http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=6495369

Not to be off topic or anything.

If your target is a discussion of when to resign, posting games to illustrate your point won't make it any more a rule that there is a resign point.

I resign a lot...I can see the hand writing on the wall.  Others probably see it in themselves, too, but they aren't obligated by rule to resign, so trying to make a subjective decision an objective reality is like trying to tilt a windmill with a toothbrush.

My target is an objective discussion of the mathematically-based, optimal resignation point. Most discussion around resigning gets bogged down by ideological presuppositions: either Never resign or Resign when you can't see a way out. It should be possible to derive a not-so-simple formula based on factors such as difference in the two players' material, difference in the two players' ratings, how many times thay have played each other, the proportion of previous wins of each player in such encounters, etc.

This would never have the force of a rule - just a guideline similar to 'a knight on the rim is dim' or 'a queen off the board is floored'.

OckhamsRazor wrote: ... so trying to make a subjective decision an objective reality is like trying to tilt a windmill with a toothbrush.

What if it were a very small windmill and a very large toothbrush?

those variables (material, ratings, previous games) are fine, but even if they can be used to calculate something objectively, you also need to specify a criteria against which to measure (in other words, what is that 'something').

that is, would the objective resignability point be identified by the probability of a particular result (win/loss/draw/etc), the probability that one or both players might learn something about chess (or life or love or each other), or the probability the players might enjoy themselves by playing on a few more moves (and what if one player would really, really enjoy playing on, but only because of the kick s/he gets out of mildly annoying their opponent by wasting his/her time). important issues.

Indeed. One optimal resignation point (out of a series of optima) would be the one at which the eventual outcome has a less than 5% (say) probability of being different from the predicted outcome at this point in the game. This is the most interesting one from my point of view.

Another ORP would be: positions reached where the endings are relatively well-known e.g. K+R vs R, K+Q vs K, K+R+R vs K, K + 4P vs K.

Yet another ORP would be: forced checkmate in N moves.

The more awareness there is of the points at which the outcome is unlikely to change, the more clear everyone can be about their (perfectly valid) reasons for playing on. I sometimes play out a lost game just to finish a conversation.

On a marginally related topic, would there be some mileage in being able to hide your rating from everyone (including yourself!)?

You would need to anonymise yourself at the same time. On Open Seeks, you would just become: player-1  rating 1201-1500, or player-2  rating 1501-1800, etc.