Graceful Winning?

The posting regarding dealing with losing seems to need a complement - how should a winner behave...

- at a tournament?

- in a game with another player face to face?

- in a game with a person online?

Not having ever won yet I cannot offer any ideas - been playing since Christmas.

What are some of the better ways you have behaved after winning?  What are some of the better ways winners behaved after you lost to them?

If you post replies to your own posts is that a sign of insanity?  I clearly am not ready to lose my mind.  I haven't won anything yet. 

If you win, tell your opponent they played a good game, and then leave the board unless there's another conversation happening between the two of you.

I personally lost a game a couple nights ago,in which my opponent played a great game. Afterwards, I told him so, and he responded by laughing at me and telling me I should quit playing becauseI was terrible. I challenged him to a rematch, which he promptly refused, and then closed the board. DON'T DO THIS.

Hey Black-Magix - thanks for the post!  The guy who beat you is one of the reasons I play against a computer until I get a bit better. 

You show a lot of poise.  Crush 'em the next time and be nice - that drives nasty people absolutely nuts.

In OTB chess strong players tend to go over the game together and discuss it. I find this is a great way to practice gracious winning and losing. Here's the person you just trounced/got clobbered by... now you look over the moves objectively and discuss what went right and wrong.  It can be difficult at times. I find it very hard to swallow my pride and accept "tips" from a lower rated player who just beat me because of an idiot blunder I made and am all too well aware of! Here they are pointing it out to me, slowly, so I understand. AAARRRRGH. But it's good for the soul. You learn to laugh at yourself. 

It can be hard not to be pompous in victory, hard not to be bitter in defeat -- but one learns, hopefully!

I'd like to see more kibitzing after online games. But it doesn't seem to happen. I'm not sure why.

Lol, actually the player who infuriates me most when we go over games is the highest rated player at our very small local chess club. He's an older russian gentleman, a master, who is a very natural player. He doesn't know much book, certainly not much current book, but he's just damn good. His tactics are sharp but mostly he plays a rock solid positional game.  Whenever he beats me, and he always beats me, he repeats the same g*dd*mn pablum in that speaking backwards Russian accent -- I want to strangle him: "You must pay attention to the center -- you have neglected the center in the opening, blah blah" and I know just how Nimzowitsch must have felt! "NO NO you damn fool," I want to shout... "Quiet with your ancient ideas which were challenged successfully one hundred years ago, arrrgh, dammit man, you beat me with superior skill in handling your pieces, superior positional judgement in the middle game, superior tactical vision, and I hung a N to that nifty little three move combination of yours, you beat me because YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME AND I'M OKAY WITH THAT... but you did not beat me because I neglected the center thats NOT WHY I LOST shutupshutupshuttyuppyshutup!" 

... But of course I nod quietly and stroke my chin and say, "Ohhh yes, of course, thank you sir..."

But someday, I'm going to beat him with a flank opening and force him to listen to my lengthy hypermodern analytical monologue! I will make him pay!

Playing OTB after win I usually try to find some good moments in my opponent's play ( almost always you can find something ) and tell him/her about it. Online I say nothing or "good game", but always ready to discuss the game if my opponent wants it.

Ditto