Checkmate over Resignation

Loomis wrote:

Maybe chess.com should change it so that when you win it says "won by intellectual superiority" and when you lose it should say "lost by bad luck". Then everyone would feel good.

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 Loomis, you are rapidly becoming my favourite chess.com member!

caasinauj wrote: A win is win no matter what!

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Well said...

We will have that game against each other, I promise. But I am going on vacation in a week. Actually, I'll be much closer to your lobe of the globe (in 8 days I fly to Dublin).

darkpawn wrote:

I haven't really thought about it until now, but does it affect how many points you earn or lose if you resign or get checkmated rather than resign?

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 This has been asked many times before. Either you get 0 point, 1/2 a point, or 1 point. That's it. Period.

A win is a win is a win.

I think darkpawn meant rating points, but the answer is the same. You get the same rating points no matter how you win. An opponent can't cheat you out of rating points by resigning or letting time expire.

I know he meant rating points. I was saying that they fluctuate according to 3 and only 3 outcomes. At the same time, I was trying to remind him that this is also the way things are in tournament play. Sorry for the confusion.

I played thousands of chess games and resigned only few times. I do not resign not because want to be rude or something like that. . .I dont resign because i enjoy playing chess and because you can learn more from defeat than from victory and so on and so on . . .and because i am STUBBORN. . . but i do not disrespect anyone!!!!! Question: Would it be right thing to do to resgn a tennis mach(or any other) just because you are losing badly??? This is only sport where it is desired to give up?

Achievement is not always defined by victory. Sometimes achievement lies in the honest endeavor to do your best under all circumstances, knowing that on any given day, intense personal effort may be the only thing that separates you from your competition. To be your best, grab your paddle and get moving. (from somewhere)

 

I expect this sort of behavior out of low rated or new to chess players. It doesn't bother me that much when that is the case, but when a seasoned 1700-2000 rated will not resign in a clearly lost position this is the most aggrevating experience known to chess players, makes me want to quit chess! I have a player now that went on vacation, made moves in other games for a month, has made one move in the last 4 days but has and is in a clearly completely lost. Comes on line often, obviously to move in other games! These types of players should take up another game and stop wasting my time and disrespecting me and the game of chess!!! They will lose that is a fact but they should just clear the game off the ledger and get on with it? Opinions please?

i fight for a draw, to the end, unless, i see a checkmate within a couple moves. Sorry, that's me

i like playing games till the end unless i see a clear win in the end game eg. my king vs king+rook

i agree with those who have stated the possibility of a stalemate.  i would try for a stalemate as well.  theres always the chance of a mistake which is how you got ahead in the first place.

You have to ask yourself why you play chess to begin with. Here are some of my reasons:

1. It's fun. I enjoy playing chess. It stimulates my brain and I like that feeling.

2. It's a challenge. When you play a close game against an equally matched or slightly better opponent you get to push yourself to the edge of your mental capabilities.

 

I don't play chess for rating points or bragging rights or to accomplish anything. Once my opponent has a clear and easy victory, shuffling my pieces around in the hopes of the possibility of a blunderous stalemate is neither fun nor challenging. It simply doesn't fit my reasons for playing the game, so I resign with respect for my opponent's well played game. 

resignation is the the way to go. Just look at the professionals, how many of their games actually end in checkmate

I know I'm digging up an ancient thread, but I thought this was worth addressing, as both a tennis and chess enthusiast. The main difference between tennis/most other sports (disregarding time limit) and chess is that chess has a perpetually changing, causal relationship between the two sides. In a best-of-three-sets match, a tennis player could theoretically be losing 6-0, 5-0, 40-Love (one point from losing the match) and still come back and win by playing perfect tennis. That is, each point is an isolated event with no physical effect on the next point.

In chess, however, every single move has a causal relationship with every subsequent move. It's unforgiving - if you blunder and lose material early in the game, you are handicapped for the rest of that game. If you blunder badly enough (or at all at higher levels), no amount of perfect play can recover a win or probably even a draw without your opponent making an even bigger blunder than yours.

On the other hand, auto racing, for example, has a purer causal relationship between each lap than chess does between each move, and yet it's considered unsportsmanlike to resign from a clearly "lost" race, even if you're in last place and your only chance of winning is if the entire field crashes. I guess it just comes down to a matter of what players, fans, and (in the age of consumerism) sponsors decide is "sportsmanlike." For chess, there are decent arguments for both sides.

Perhaps in the future, we can invent computers that analyze players' abilities and accurately predict game outcomes before the first move - then we could eliminate the tedium of actually playing the games. Until then...

In a tournament situation, usually the right thing to do is resign in a lost situation. But in general play I have no problem with an opponent who plays on insisting that I checkmate him.

Lets face it, in order for it to be a "lost game" for the opponent, you have to be able to deliver mate without falling into a stalemate or another drawn game scenaro. If players never get to practice this, especially concepts like "the opposition", then at some time when you are going to need to demonstrate you can, you might just forget....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFF5ibgB6eA

Get over it.  A win is a win.  There is no requirement.

Who the hell cares what the opponent you just beat does.  A lot better than leaving you hanging for the better part of 10 minutes on the clock.

don't think about the checkmate.
think about the fact that you outplayed your opponent in the end. 

I, too, always hated to see someone resign one move from checkmate.  I either prefer them to resign when their situation looks hopeless, or else let me play through to checkmate.  True, a win is a win, but it's a bit more satisfying to achieve checkmate than a win one move from checkmate.

Some people are stupid, and waste their time playing on hopless positions, instead of resigning and playing another game, when they are clearly and I mean clearly lost. That is ok by me.  Even if they resign one move away from checkmate.

What I consider rude, and far worse is when they let the clock run out under these circumstances.  And move very very slowly on purpose

I was surprised to see how many were. 

And a win is a win is a win. Wouldn't certainly make a big deal out of it.