Hey kids! Learn how to resign!

You've all been there.  You're at a tournament facing some little sandbagger, who has spent most of their chess life playing speed-skittles in the school cafeteria, while the math teacher who coaches the "chess club" hangs back and quietly vapes.  Unfortunately, one of the mantras that teacher drilled into these bratniks is to NEVER RESIGN.  That's right, even after you've cleaned them out of pieces and they are sniveling over their king and remaining bishop, you still have to mate the little creeps, because they've been told over and over that resigning is bad. 

Generally speaking in a chess game, you should always sit tight and wait for a blunder when the going gets tough.  But eating clock and making someone convert your totally lost position into a mate is just lame. RESIGN.  Do the right thing, act like competitor, and walk away with honor. 

TMB

Do you mean stalling?

No, I mean sitting there with no pieces left hoping their opponent blunders away a win.  Never Resign is a standard trope in chess education for kids - and it needs to stop, because it promotes poor sportsmanship. A graceful resignation is a much better way to end a lost game than assuming your opponent is an idiot. 

Equally offensive (maybe more offensive) is when they offer draws after losing material.  

I unexpectedly won a lost OTB game with an epaulette mate against an uncastled king flanked by two rooks, where my opponent had a 27 pawn advantage against me, likely a forced mate if I let the engine run for a few more seconds.

I didn’t resign out of spite because earlier when I had introduced myself and offered a smile and handshake before sitting down, he just stared at me and didn’t utter a word, while I maintained eye contact, smiled, and the handshake position a full 4 seconds before relenting.

What did I learn from all of this? To fight on and believe in myself in the direst of circumstances? No... I learned that 1200 level players can sometimes blunder decisively against 1100 level players, even when they are up massive material. Kind of wish I had those extra 2 hours back, but the look on his face when he realized his material greed allowed a checkmate, and sharing this story was worth it... one time only.

I agree with the OP.

Very few sports or games include resignation as an option.  Most just play to the end.  Resignation is just a shortcut, nothing else.  It's neither sporting nor unsporting to resign or not resign, it's just a choice.

>As long as your opponent has time on his clock, it’s his to use as he wishes.<

WRONG ANSWER.  Wishes are not the issue here. Sure, your opponent can sit there and pick his nose and flick it at the ceiling on his time - that doesn't make his "wishes" polite, correct, sportsmanlike, or even tolerable. 

> It's neither sporting nor unsporting to resign or not resign, it's just a choice.<

WRONG ANSWER.  It's not "just a choice."  When you watch GM games, they resign lost positions. They don't sit there waiting for their fellow grandmasters to have a brain-drain and blunder away a won position. If that's your tactic to win a point, you didn't win the point. They lost it. Those pats on your back are only from you. 

>I learned that 1200 level players can sometimes blunder decisively against 1100 level players, even when they are up massive material. <

GRAY AREA.  Yeah, that's true. And I've learned that in the vast wasteland of 1200-1500 ratings, anyone can beat anybody. People DO blunder. What I'm saying is sitting around shuffling your king, making your opponent mate you with their king and rook is just uncool. It wastes everyone time. Hey, why not get up and go have a meal while your final 30 minutes ticks away. That's pretty uncool too.  JUST RESIGN, YOU LOST.

 

If you don't have the precious time allowed to play, don't agree to it to start with.Quit yer 'itching!

How is it possibly a 'wrong answer'?!  Grandmasters choose to resign, it isn't forced in them.  Most people aren't aren't Grandmasters though so what GMs do is irrelevant.

As for playing on against a lone Rook and King, why not?  If the opponent is competent they'll finish the game off and win anyway, if they're incompetent then they won't know how to do so.  Nothing wrong with forcing them to prove it, even in the modern lazy world where people think they are owed everything for nothing.

Can't say I have a lot of sympathy for someone upset at having to do the work of winning in order to win.

If it's an easily won game, then what's the gripe?  And if it's not, then why should the other person resign?

(Caveat: I've been known to grumble -- perhaps justifiably, perhaps not -- at correspondence players who extend a game by weeks or months past the point where it's a simple win.  But even there, my gripe isn't at playing out until mate; it's at doing so at the rate of a move a week, especially when all the other games in the round are done.  That hardly applies in an over-the-board situation.)

Also, when these kids don't resign, it means they're getting a lot of experience with simple endgames, which will help them when they're on the winning side of one.  It seems stingy not to give them a lesson in how to finish things off.

You keep screaming "wrong answer!" when people give you right answers. This is a You problem. No one has to resign when you think it's time. Don't be such a snowflake! Just win the game.

I think if prize money is involved, so be it... play on til the bitter or better end.

Otherwise, it is not a matter of the losing player legally being able to play on ... it is more making the case of why? Are you trying to learn chess or are you trying to fix a part of your damaged ego? What is the best use of the losing player’s time? If I agree to G120 with 5 second delay, then I am ready to play the full time. I can still make the case that the losing player, myself or my opponent, has no point in playing on other than s/he can.

 

Yes, this is perhaps the key question.  And it is a question for the losing player.  The winning player does not get to decide the answer for them.

True ... Winner doesn’t get to decide, but can sit and stare in judgment with arm folded, hyperbolically yawn repeatedly, and act freaked out by every move the loser makes. You are starting to convince me that the winner ought to use all of the clock as well.

How about you just win your game...

I mean why should they resign if you can't even beat them, that's just silly, if everyone resigned when they lost no one would know how to checkmate...

The aim of the game is to CHECKMATE your opponent not resign when you lose a piece or all, if you had honour you would fight to the end not retreat like a coward!

bruh don't resign

yeah

>My coach says to NEVER RESIGN. <

Exactly. That's my point.  It's bad advice, because while there are always times when you should wait for the opponent to screw up, there are also times when you are hopelessly lost and no, running your king around the board and slapping your clock like a lab rat isn't going to stop the mate. It doesn't "improve your chess;" if anything, it makes you a worse player. NO grandmasters would do this. So why should you? Or is it only grandmasters who should resign? Or maybe...experts too? Class A?  Where do you draw the line? Answer: you don't. 

 

You mean most of them resign lost positions.

 

https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-ding-liren-let-me-down

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate

 

I am sure there is a list of grandmasters there who failed to win a king, bishop and knight against lone king endgame, where the inferior side plays on in the hopes of a failure by the superior side to land a checkmate.

 

DIfferent people have different views on this, and to me, your "wrong answer" is wrong or at least flawed.

 

I have been in a tournament where I watched a kid shuffling around his rooks unsuccessfully to launch a basic king and rook versus rook endgame with no other pieces on board against another kid who did not resign. The winning kid would have gone into the 50-move rule had he not found the winning technique. If I recall, he took around 30 moves of shuffling before finally playing an important move before the checkmate. Then the other kid was saying: "Yes, finally!" and criticised the winning kid for not knowing the basic checkmate.

 

Some players learn endgames the easy way by doing puzzles. While others do them the hard way. And I am sure that players who do not resign till the end has this in mind: "Show me the final checkmate position or I will not hand over the point".

 

Whether it's sportsmanlike or not, well, we can wish that they should resign, but cannot actually enforce it. Personally for me, I would expect that the higher a player's rating, the higher the likelihood of resignation, but I cannot enforce it. It ultimately boils down to who you play with and the time controls used (would someone bother to resign if he/she is about to be checkmated in a 10 seconds per side game?).