Read this!

by RoadVersion
Dallas United States

Why ever resign? Make your opponent checkmate you. Once you are miserably behind in the game, it may be humiliating to play to the bitter end and be checkmated, however, the opponent may not be good at end-game play and you may be able to cause a stalemate. A tie is much better than a loss. Too many times the player who is down will resign. As a result, neither player obtains the experience of end-game play. This is another reason to play to the bitter end. To gain experience in end-game play. And, since many times there is a resignation, there are many, otherwise very good players who are not so good at end-game play. This opens up the opportunity to force a draw. Once you are hopelessly down, advance your pawns as far as they can go (who knows? you may promote one!) Then, once no pawn has a legal move available, if you have any pieces left on the board, move them directly in front of the opposing players pieces or pawns to have them captured. This will leave you with the King as your only piece on the board with legal moves, which is required for a possible stalemate. Then, as your opponent tries to corner your King, be looking for a square to move to which all the surrounding spaces are “guarded” by opposing pieces, leaving no place to move without moving into check. Your opponent may not see the stalemate position, resulting in a possible draw.

I believe that this person is right!  What do u think?

He has two main points:

1) Dragging out a game allows you to practice endgames.

You can practice more conveniently and more efficiently against a computer like Rybka or Fritz.

2) You might be able to draw.

If you can FORCE a draw, then obviously don't resign and go for it. If you are HOPING that your opponent makes a 1-in-a-trillion chance blunder, then the time spent is not worth it. A human being only lives 2-3 billion seconds -- I'm serious, do a quick calculation yourself (2-3 billion seconds equate to 60-90 years!). Against strong opponents, you might encounter one of these rare blunders once every 10000 games -- that's a lot of time wasted from your life just to get a single draw.

lies. resign when the game is lost.

and don't post with titles like READ THIS. :)

Thats just cruel

i agree with you 110%

About the fact that it was cruel or the resigning fact?

Hi,

I disagree with the idea of not resigning. I like to drag games out from time but there are many things which the author of that suggestion seems to ignore. For starters, as someone mentioned, there is a lot of time wasted in the process - and I don't think you can write this off as gaining "endgame experience". Fighting on when down a rook against a 2000+ rated player is, in in no way a learning experience.

If you think you the probability of losing is very high (95% or higher) I think resigning early can sometimes be beneficial - especially during an OTB tournament where you still have a round upcoming. You can save energy, time, and make use of the fact that the *real* causes of your failure are still fresh in you mind. The real learning experience is figuring out why you got a totally lost position - not trying to figure out how to improve at playing totally lost positions.

Finally, it's just emotionally difficult to continue a game after a gnarly mistake (or a set of them) - there's no reason to crucify yourself. Better to go figure out what you did wrong, calm down, and start a new battle.

That's my opinion anyway =)

~ Dereque