Promoting pawns when you are ahead in material...Rude?

If they are in a helpless position some people play on just in case a blunder.so promoting would put them in a more helpless position and the game ends.

I HAVE SACRIFICED MY QUEEN FOR A PAWN PROMOTION.

Then I promoted into a queen and another and another.He finally resigned but in I personally think that if you let stay in the game the person will stay there and fight!!!!! YA YA YA YA YA YA YA YA

I don't think it's particularly rude either.. Do what you want, and let your opponent do the same.  Why bring emotional baggage into it?

Maybe they don't know how to easily win with what they've got without putting themselves at risk for a stalemate. Maybe they could win quicker by promoting..  Maybe the just find some sense of satisfaction in an overwhelming victory..  Regardless, what has that to do with you?  If you don't like it resign.  Let them play the game the way they would like, and hopefully they'll let you do the same.. What more can you fairly hope for?

Why on EARTH is it rude? If you realize that a loss is totally inevitable, you resign. If your opponent isn't really high ranked and wants to make sure he can mate before time runs out or he draws by the fifty move rule than he would be dumb NOT to promote the pawn.

And it's true...I haven't resigned before pawn promotions in the hope of forcing a stalemate...and it worked!

I wasn't doing it to be annoying. I was doing it to see if I could work a draw out of a losing position. And it's worked for me more than once, so I don't intend on stopping until I see a really quick and obvious mate.

I removed that last bit on Grandmaster play before you replied because I didn't feel it was directly related to whether a person should overpromote, and I was overly hot in how I stated it.. However since you responded.. I will in turn do the same..

You said it yourself " If I'm up a piece on Anand, he will almost surely lose."  Almost surely.. But not surely.  If there's is an ulterior reason.. Fine.. You're tired and need to conserve your mental strength for a more winnable game.. Okay, that would be valid.. Because you feel it will increase your chances in further games..

Otherwise you're selling yourself short.  If you made the mistake.. So can he.  It may not be likely, but unless you have an additional reason to resign, you're giving away games.

Incidentally Grandmasters hang pieces more frequently than 1 in 100,000,000,000 even when they're playing just to trade down.. True though even then that would only get you back to near even.  More is required win.. But I'd estimate the chances for a win closer to 1 in 1,000 for good opponents of equal skill.  Much greater still for a draw, still not likely, but why give it away if not because you're tired or being polite?

If promoting pawns helps you win, how can you not do it, regardless of material advantage?? You take the swiftest route you can to checkmate. Being up a bishop and 2 pawns DOES NOT guarantee you victory. Promoting a pawn gets you much closer to victory. Not rude.

If you are one move from checkmate, but instead promote a pawn, it might be considered rude...i guess.

Heh, this is funny.  Joeydvivre is right, 1 in 100 billion is a fair estimate.  A piece down vs a GM (no compensation)?  It's hard to make a comparison.  It's not like surviving a 100 foot fall, more like surviving jumping into an erupting volcano...

So joey, just to make things clear..  My statement of "But I'd estimate the chances for a win (closer) to 1 in 1,000 for good opponents of equal skill" is fantastically wrong.. Which means that there aren't 1 in 49,000,000,000 Grandmaster level games (basically ever in recorded chess history) where a Grandmaster resigned a won position a piece down?   Because that's what you just said in case you weren't aware...

Maybe if you'd like to bring science into it you'd prefer to be more precise?  If we're going to argue about our ballparks I think I'll still manage to come out ahead.

That was never my point though.  My point was only that many a game has been resigned in otherwise winnable situations due to the propriety of chess politeness.. I think that's unfortunate.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so antagonistic.. But I've got nothing against you.  I'm sure you're a smart player, I wish you were a little more friendly though.

Fair enough.  But is the situation hopeless under what one might consider perfect play, or hopeless regardless? 

While I don't think one should base their moves on hoping the opponent doesn't see the flaw in the plan, I also don't feel people should assume the opponent will play perfect and necessarily see what you see.

There are situations where I agree with most.. A grandmaster just isn't going to mess up when play is down to 6 pieces and he's up a minor piece.. It's just not going to happen.. I personally think there's still room for error in the middle game though, be it overlooking a forced mate or hanging a piece, it happens even to grandmasters.

However even if it's KQ vs K which is probably drilled into all of our heads so that we could do it blindfolded, half asleep, with two hands behind our back.  What's the harm in playing it out.. Definitively lost games play out quickly.  More than a few people would find that rude though.  It would be as if you were saying "You're an amateur".   I've known a few people who would get REALLY worked up over something like that..  Honestly though, I'd still prefer to play it out.. Not because I want practice on my K+Q vs K endgames, or because I think my opponent is going to mess up.. But simply because I prefer the sense of closure checkmate brings.. It's an aesthetic thing for me more than anything else..  At least it is when it's fairly obvious to me who's going to win.

But I have personally felt the social pressure from similiar situations. I've even resigned out of "Politeness" when I felt there was at least a decent chance of drawing and would have preferred to play on and would have meant no disrespect in doing so.  It bothered me that my only choices were to bow to a social convention I feel is silly, or infuriate someone essentially because that social convention is in place.

I think there are plenty of valid reasons to resign, but lacking a good reason.. Why not just play on, even in a losing position.  Who does it hurt, other than an ego based on silly convention..  Again though, if you're tired, it's late, or you just don't want to.. That's fine.. I just don't think it should be expected.

I don't like playing out lost games. When the position is so bad that I have no plan to follow and I might as well make random moves, then I'm not playing chess anymore. I prefer to resign before that happens.

I think that's absolutely fair, no one should expect you to play out a game you've no interest in..   Would you feel offended if your opponent did want to play out a game he was losing though?  Because a lot of people would. 

It seems to me there's always a plan though, even if it's limited to playing for a draw with a depth of 1 move.

Honestly I've preferred the few times I've managed to wring a draw out of a loss more than when I've won with a standard King Pawn endgame.  It felt more like a win, even though it wasn't.  But I imagine everyone's different, I would never begrudge anyone else to play as they chose.. I just wish the same held true Universally.

Wow, cool :)

But now show it going into a volcano

Have you ever seen a grandmaster game? ... not trying to be rude, I just mean they resign pretty late as a rule, especially in important games (they're in the running for money / a title).

It's fine to play out a "pointlessly" lost game like K+R vs K.  Once someone's done it enough times, and their peers are obviously good enough to not mess it up, people (generally) don't feel the need to see it anymore and will resign.

If someone is something like 1400 (USCF) and still insists on playing out K+R vs K against their peers though, I'd have to wonder what kind of OCD they might have that doesn't let them resign a clearly lost game heh.

I'm not sure it's rude, but I played a game where my opponent decided to promote a bunch of pawns.  I kept playing because I would have had a stalemate if they captured the pawn I used to put them in check, which they didn't fall for.  Since they made it clear they were going to promote all their pawns instead of getting the quick, and I've come to realize that the chances of stalemate seem to be more when you have a bunch of queens against a lone king, I continued playing.  They then ended up chasing the king all over the board with their queens like they couldn't figure out how to get a checkmate.

Something like this.  It was several months ago so the game is lost, but it was similar to this, and I'm not exaggerating about it.  I remember the computer analysis went crazy over all the missed mates.

I received that advice before (from good-player) promote to rooks to prevent stalemate so well said.

To quote Bobby Fischer, "I like the moment when I break a man's ego."

Promote all your pawns if you can.

:)

I think that the circumstances are true that if you promote when you are ahead is not rude.I have been a dumb player and promote so i got stalemate.

There ius nothing wrong with not promoting to a queen--I have had a couple of games lately where it was absolutely essential to promote to a N.

In games where  you are way ahead and your opponent will not resign  and you have plenty of time and want to try and make a point--then go ahead and under promote.

I just wonder when it became acceptable (or even encouraged, according to some posts) to play a rook-down endgame all the way out to mate. In my day (here I go), a player learned the basic checkmates very early in his or her career, and so it was assumed that every club level player knew how to win a piece up. And you NEVER saw a master-level game, even one given in an instructional book like Chess Master Vs. Chess Amateur, where the weaker side kept playing even when he was down a piece. So what is it with these chess coaches telling their pupils to NEVER resign? A pox upon them, I say.