Never resign?

I screwed myself by resigning one game in a tnmt in which I'm currently in 3rd place, the opponent I resigned to was then kicked out for cheating so everyone else in my group got 2 pts while I only got one vs the cheater - and one loss. Still, I hate looking at games in which I'm totally mopped up and who knew she was going to get 86'd? (Dracula39) The resignation I'm talking about was in group 2 BTW.

AND I am aware of the fact that there have been lots of blogs about players who drag lost games out, not to mention blogs about losing games and rating pts to cheaters (now I know what everyone else was complaining about in regards to the cheaters, although I'm NOT suggesting my resignation be invalidated, annulled or whatever)

Any opinions here?

http://www.chess.com/tournaments/player_summary?id=26954&member=NimzoRoy

"No game was ever won by resigning." Savielly Tartakower

you been tango-ed again

I would say it depends on what you're looking for in the game. If its a friendly game (i.e. not for money or something) then I look at it as not the difference between a win and a loss, but a win and learning. Winning a friendly game because someone times out or is banned from chess.com isn't really winning a game. In the case of the latter, it wasn't cheating the rules of the game itself, but the rules of the medium or context it is played in. I.E. The person didn't sneak a queen back on the board in the endgame and between your lone pawn and king or something ridiculous like that. You just lost to a better competitor (a computer). A good way of fixing that problem is not reversing the loss, but for the purposes of ratings calculations, the banned oppoent should be given a rating like 3000 since that is what most engines play at these days. You didn't lose to the 1600 rated cheater, you just lost to the 3000 rated Houdini or whatever. You still lost though.

However, there are cases where the ratings points or tournament position mean a lot like when money is involved or to a lesser extent pride, etc. In these cases, don't resign unless its against a person you know is real and know won't blunder away an easily won game (i.e. an over the board game against a solid opponent). Tartakower was right when he said no game was ever won by resigning, but in correspondence chess other games have been won by resigning and focusing attention on games that are still winnable.

I resigned a game against one player only for him to time out all his remaining games.

The time-out thing has happened to me too, often. I think it's because I play faster than most, and my games are almost always complete before anybody else.

Exactly how are you gonna analyze your opponents game without analyzing your own as well?

I think it is ok to resign and you take the chance that the player is NOT caught cheating and has to forfeit his games--they should have changed the result in your game to a win by forfeit..

Why not just do your best and then do the computer check after?

I'm not sure that perfect games count.  I played something like 8 games against someone that I suspected of cheating due to a constant move time, despite the obvious moves (like 3. Qxf3+ Kxf3) and their games turned out to be perfect according to Fritz.  I also noticed they have something like 11x as many wins.  I reported them to chess.com, and have met others who have, but they've been here for a few years.  I think they purposefully play crap games from time to time to avoid notice.  Perhaps they're really a super GM, but since they're rating is only 1000, they just trash who ever they play against.

How long until this thread is locked?

I agree that this should count as a win for those who lost to the cheater.

Chris-u, another problem with that method is that its unlikely that you will actually catch your opponent cheating. When people post computer analysis they usually include the engine, GUI implementation, and system specs with it because all that stuff (maybe not the GUI) affects what the output is. Someone running Houdini 2 on a 64 bit, 8 core processor may get a different best move than someone running Houdini 2 on a 1 core 32 bit system, and a wildly different line than someone using Toga. There are much more complex methods of testing for cheating that rely on using multiple engines and using the top-3 or so moves to use for statistical testing, but its unlikely someone can do that at home.

I suppose Fritz is wildly popular since its cheap and comes with a good GUI from what I hear (unfortunately, cheap is still too expensive for me), so I suppose someone with Fritz will be likely to catch other Fritz cheaters, though. Still you obviously have the issue of using an engine on your own game. Even honest people who only test the previous move and before may glance at the best line and accidentally see two moves ahead because even though they are usually honest, its like dangling the candy bar in front of the dieter's face as opposed to keeping it in the cabinet saving it for a reward after they have acheived some goal

chris-u, how did you know the person was cheating?  It seems almost impossible to tell.  And if the person makes several clever moves consecutively, who can be sure it wasn't just 'their day' :)

I remember a class where the guys who were the professional cheaters caught wind at the last moment that the teacher might know that the answers were out.  So they all just used it as a guide and went 1/2 on their own.  Everyone else got busted.  And I mean everyone.

I think is ok to resign when there is no hope to win....is a waste of time to keep playing...

Nimz thought that too!  until he got tango-ed!

I think beginners should never resign; Even if your position is lost, there is something to be learned about technique, as you can emulate what your opponent does to you in later games. Also, there's a chance that he/she will blunder back, and let you back into the game.

There's some undefined rating, though, that never resigning becomes disrespectful to your opponent, and time wasting. If you're down a piece in an endgame refusing to resign, your effectively saying "I think that you're so crappy, that you may actually allow me to come back into this game by blundering, and i'm willing to waste both of our time over it." 

In OP's specific occasion, I feel that the two afformentioned rules still apply. Just because you may be playing a cheater doesn't give you justification to never resign (of course unless you're a beginner), because the chances that you actually are playing a cheater are very slim. Just be glad that chess.com caught the guy/gal so quickly...

By resigning at the appropiate time you are maintaining your integrity.

Internet chess brings out extremely bad manners in some people.

By resigning at the appropiate time you are maintaining your integrity.

Internet chess brings out extremely bad manners in some people.

I think xAsnl says it all...