What about 1/1000? get real, just sit there and watch the clock... tic...toc...
NEVER RESIGN!
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When I'm playing a strong player that has a distinct advantage, I'll still play on with a piece down until I can see that I'm dead in the water: I can't stop one of his/her pawns from promoting or I can see the forcing combination that leads to mate, etc etc.
Until it's drop dead time though, there always is the possibility the opponent will get all excited and drop a piece or fumble the attack, no reason to pull the plug just because I'm a piece down.
We all have to play our own game our way but the people who play on when it's totally futile I have to give their due. Mind you, they seem to think they are in a shoot-em up video game where you keep firing until all your bullets are gone; ya gotta smile a bit.
Then there's the bad loser types who stop moving in a losing position and let the time run to the last second because if they can't win, they'll do their best to annoy. For sure those peeps are the trash talkers as well, and SHAZAM I like whippin' down on their hides! I make sure I give them a cheery 'good game' and maybe a 'have a nice day' as well...
Benecheli, if you play 1000 games in your life and you resign every time the odds of saving the game are 1/1000, you will probably resign at least one game you shouldn't have.
I sometimes play more than 100 games a day, so those are VERY realistic odds for me to continue playing.
If there were some way to accurately calculate the odds of saving a game (which I acknowledge there is not), then you should resign when you have less than 1/100,000 chances of saving it. Most people won't play more than 100,000 games.
I've seen grandmasters play on in seemingly completely hopeless positions against other grandmasters because they still had some little sliver of a tactical chance. This is one of the marks of a really strong player! They know that there are weird draws lurking in all sorts of positions.
Please see the example in post #130.
Hmmm... The board seems to be having trouble loading. I'll try again later.
Moses, I'm not talking about mouse slips, I'm talking about legit swindles. Most of my swindles come about because my opponent wasn't aware there was a draw trap in the first place. The example I posted, which still hasn't loaded, is one case in point.
White has K, R & P vs a lone Bishop, but the position is only a draw. This being down an exchange AND a pawn! There are bunches of positions like this! GMs will play on even against other GMs in serious tournaments as long as they can reasonably hope for one of these swindle draws.
Let me try the position again...
My point is that I will keep playing on when there are many pieces on the board as long as I can see a way where white would plausibly reach this position or one similar to it.
The stronger the player, the more positions like this that player knows!
Never resigning only makes sense in bullet games, which is basically a test how fast your eyeballs move.
It seems the diagram bug is still with us. One last try. Don't resign this position, or a position where you might be able to reach it!
"but personally I get no joy from winning or saving a game in this way."
That's fine for you, but keep in mind you always are hoping for a blunder, whether in a losing, equal, or even winning position! Carlsen cannot win if his opponent doesn't make mistakes. It's not how chess players win games.
So for me it is what it is. If I win down a rook maybe it is not as aesthetically satisfying, but for me the win is and feels as legitimate (that is different from aesthetically pleasing) as any other because let's face it, if the opponent didn't want this swindle to occur, he could have just played the right moves if it is so easy. As in any position, I give my opponent the chance to play the right moves, keep my eye open, and mine a win or draw if he makes a mistake. That is the only way in which it is possible to win a game of chess at all.
Guys, the problem is you are both reasonable people. All you can do is argue about when you should resign.
The problem comes from the unreasonable people that consider that resigning in any situation would not be manly (unlike wasting the opponent's time and disconnecting I suppose) - or that an opponent that could win against them is not able to mate with two more queens.
Nope, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with my opponent hoping I will stalemate them in the corner; I will simply work to ensure both them and myself that that does not occur and that I mate them. It does not necessarily imply that they think it will actually happen -- as we know, if they are "wrong" and I don't stalemate them -- no penalty! They get the same result! So even if you fail to improve your result constantly -- your result has not suffered from it in the slightest, so I certainly don't blame them.
I have said here before that spite is obviously not a good reason to play on -- although I generally give my opponent the benefit of the doubt as to whether they are doing so or not because I simply can't read their mind and the logic in the above paragraph could very well be going through their heads.
Elubas wrote:
I have said here before that spite is obviously not a good reason to play on -- although I generally give my opponent the benefit of the doubt as to whether they are doing so or not because I simply can't read their mind and the logic in the above paragraph could very well be going through their heads.
Well, it depends on the game you played of course, but as for me I am not kind enough to give them the benefit of the doubt when it is K+Q vs K after a game at a 1800+ level.
But would you really think/assume they doubt your ability to win the K+Q? I would think it's much more likely that they would be thinking "The chances are almost zero, but just in case... let's be absolutely sure." That sentence could be said to an 1800 as it could be said to a 2500 -- the statement does not necessarily imply a serious level of doubt.
Honestly, if my opponent thought there was a non zero, 1/1000000 chance of saving K+Q, I'd probably be more likely to take that as a compliment than anything else.
Finally, there is a difference between being in the state of being able to win a position (your knowledge base), and having the willingness to expend energy to actually do it.
For me to jump up and down, I need not only legs of enough strength; I also need the willingness to expend the energy to do so. If I don't have that, I won't even do the simplest of tasks.
Elubas wrote:
Honestly, if my opponent thought there was a non zero, 1/1000000 chance of saving K+Q, I'd probably be more likely to take that as a compliment than anything else.
Hm.. I cannot figure this one out. Is it because that suggests your opponent tried his/her best in every part of the game?
No, because it would probably be hard to win K+Q a million out of a million times for someone like me (if I lived long enough to get a million of such positions).
Elubas wrote:
No, because it would probably be hard to win K+Q a million out of a million times for someone like me.
That's because of willingness, right? We all know you can repeated play the exact same winning moves each time. So, if I am correct, you are saying that because the opponent thinks you are potentially unwilling to think about some future position, they respect your chess abilities. It's a windy road to a compliment...
I would think that probably somewhat more than every million times (a million is a lot) I would be faced with that position my neurons have a chance of misfiring, whether it's because of willingness, being tired, nerves, or some combination of the three. I would be very happy if even with all of those potential problems I could manage to only screw up once every million tries. Again, we are assuming I am immortal enough that I would come across that position a million times 
.
You can't necessarily play the exact same moves for that mate, depending on the opponent. The method will be similar, but I'm sure exact moves will vary, e.g., instead of cutting the king off by files, you cut him off by ranks because that way ends up being faster or something.
And even if you could play the exact same moves, like I said, once in a while it's possible you would hallucinate anyway.
As much as I love being told that I am human, I do not take it as a compliment. But this all a matter of opinion.
Anyway that was only an ironic portion of my argument -- my point is that thinking there is a non-zero chance to hold a position does not imply they think their opponent is bad -- if it's super low, like 1 in a million, that could actually be a sign that their opponent is in fact quite good. But taking the 1 in a million chance anyway results in no penalties, so it's like a free lottery ticket, except that your only prize for winning is a won chess game
If this process took a half hour that would be one thing, but playing out king vs queen, honestly, probably takes less than one minute, so there isn't much time being wasted there.
Here's the thing, Moses. If you're playing to learn, you've changed the standard for the reason to resign.
By your new standard, you should play on if there's a 1/100 chance. That no longer is your standard. Your new standard apparently is what you can learn from the game. If that's so, there's a great deal to be learned by watching the technique of stronger players when there's still a fighting chance. And yes, 1/100 is indeed a fighting chance.