Resign on last move?

I personally find resignation on the very last move before mate rather insulting. A win may be a win, but come on...the last move? It takes just as much energy to resign as it does to make a move, and something is lost in a win by resignation, even if it isn't a big something.

As for resignation in general, it depends. In the middle of a tournament, yeah, it's part of the game. In an informal game though, there is always something to learn, and resignation takes that opportunity away from both players.

Rael...I'm not saying you wouldn't have won. You were very dominant in that game; plus you had other pieces of note such as a Bishop & Knight. I'm saying that at the point of when you retrieved your Queen, there was an avenue to defend the white King better....prolonging the game while hoping for a slip up of major proportions on your part...lol

I personally wouldn't have put myself in the situation your opponent did....but I will be on chess.com for a long time. We can play our own match if you'd like.

 I would like to know how you were able to post your game as you did in this thread; because then I could do the same with the game I have in question. My opponent didn't have anymore moves; but the last one to move their King out of check before checkmate.

I'm not boasting and saying that I can wry my way out of the delima that Rael has his opponent in. I'm just saying that I would've chosen a different path to extend the chances of the game.

I wouldn't mind playing Rael in our own game however...

 I agree

Thank you kohai. Appreciate that info. I will give it a try.

If someone is online and we are playing away, I'll say something in the comment box before resigning. If I resign whilst they are offline, I'll drop a note saying that I resign, and general goodbyes.

 Well the game is really over. There isn't anything left to fight for. The player is outplayed. The player can't find any move that can prevent a loss of a piece and there is no compensation, or the player can't find any move that can prevent a loss of a control over a square so the position crashes. Or whatever. It is like a check mate although you can still move technically speaking, well call it a "positional mate" or something like that. Game is over and a chess player want to play a game which can not happen if the game is over. If the game is not over the player don't resign. When one feels the game is over depends on one's playing strenght and general chess experience.

Rael wrote:

 So just recently I played a game wherein my opponent decided to play on well past the point as I figured he should resign. He waited until I mated him. I'm going to post it here and ask your honest opinions - at what point would you have resigned, or would you not have resigned at all?

I played as black, but I'm going to post the game from white's side of the board so you can tell me when you would've resigned. Turn #'s. 

 There is no such thing as "should" resign. It is simply not part of the rules. So there is no point in the game where white "should" resign.

Anyway, after 7... d5 white blundered by playing 8. Ng5.
Instead he should have saved his bishop by playing 8. Bc2.
So after 8. Ng5 white lost his knight and then after 9. d3 he also lost his bishop.

From then on the game was a continous demonstration that the two player has a very different playing strenght. If white had the same playing strenght as black he would probably resign after the loss of those two pieces or shortly thereafter. But he didn't and his playing style and playing strenght clearly demonstrates that resigning would make no sense at any point in the game. I mean if you don't see and react on all those threats by defending your pieces you can't expect that resignation would make any sense. If white had played with a guy of similar strenght they would have a great game where nobody would know who would win until the check mate actually happens. It would ofcourse not be fun to lose all those pieces but it would not determine the game.

 Oh my. How is a new guy like myself who wants to LEARN to see more than 2-3 plays deep going to learn with this kind of attitude? 

Inevitable?  That is hard to say. Who knows how many times your opponent could blunder.  Once it becomes obvious to be that my opponent would ahve to make severla major blunders in order for em to win I will likely resign.  In your game I probably would have been a glutton for punishment and held out until move 27.

It can depend upon the skill level of the players.  If I am playing a beginner, then I might not resign as he may or may not see the mate, or he may blunder it away.  But if playing against a high rated player, then resigning is a classy thing to do.  It acknowledges that you respect the player enough to know he will mate you on the next move, so out of respect you resign to end the game.

 But it is not required to do so.  A player has the right to play a game out to the checkmate.  But if I see an mate that is a few moves away, or if I am down significant material to a good player, I go ahead and resign.

It does not bother me if a player will not resign in the face of mate.  What does bother me is a player who just quits playing and "silently withdraws" from the game in a lost position.  That is what is nice about the chess.com time controls.  Some sites let a player build up many weeks of reflection time, then when in a lost position, they just quit playing.  It can then be weeks before their time runs out and you get the win.  That is frustrating.

 I said ply.... half moves... you can already see that deep without issue.

oh and I would have resigned on move 8, immediately after hanging that knight... even if I COULD have saved the game perhaps it's just embarassing.. in correspondence where material blunders are techincally supposed to be non-existant (I'm a hypocrite, I hung a rook last night)...

I dunno.. playing on in a lost situation is just a waste of everyone's time.. yeah sure you have the right to do it but I would probably put you on my ignore list immediately if you made me go promote a pawn and mate with a queen... 

Thank you for your post. I really believe if I were in a tournament; then the resignation on the last possible forced move of the King would be just fine. This move by my opponent just puzzled me, even though I won either way because my opponent never comunicated with me.  ...even though at times, I would let my opponent know if I had to take a long break before my next move in the message window.

We both played a very hard match; but it seemed at times when my opponent needed a braek to figure things out, they'd just leave me hanging until the next day (which is alright by the standards set by chess.com).

I really appreciate your answer.

strongsafety2005...

...you have captures the very essence of what I was saying by starting this thread. I understand a win is a win, and everybody knows what a resignantion means. The point of it all is it takes as much effort to move the King out of check to make your last move as it does to hit the resign button.

I know that I won the game. I just didn't know if I should've felt insulted by the win. I love playing chess, and sometimes I'll go back and play an opponent again; but I was left to wonder should I play this opponent again knwing that the opponent has a tendency to leave you wondering...lol

Mind you my opponent is no slouch, and could more than likely beat me six times out of ten tries if we played that much.

I just don't want to have the wrong attitude if this situation should come up again. I wasn't mad, just a bit miffed.  ...but I really like your answer as well as others that have a different impartial view.

It helps me learn a part of the game that I can say I'm not all the way familiar with; and that is the etttiquette of the game. I have been playing since 1971; but just picked up being active again here very recently.

Thanks for your response.

In regards to Raels game I´d probably resign at around move 9 or 10. I think i´ve resigned at move 7 once, and in my opinion not resigning a lost position can be somewhat rude.

I do get the whole point of playing out the position for practice, and sometimes I do that myself, but If  I feel 100% sure that I´ll lose, I often ask my opponent if he´s cool with playing out the position ( if I actually feel that playing it has some value).

 I think it has alot to do with what your attitude playing chess is.

I personally feel that I´d rather win say 60-40 % of my games and play good ( in a relative sense obvioulsy), than win 80-60% and play bad. I don´t really care that much for wins that come from my opponent totally blundering away a won game, since I should not expect to win games that way and it simply won´t improve my play to spend time hoping for my opponent to make a mistake, whilst I have zero chance of making something happen by myself.

It´s sort of like winning on time, sure it gives you a W in the stats and a rating boost, but not a lot more.

EDIT: Antonee, I don´t really se anything rude in resigning at that move, I might have asked you if you´d rather checkmate me then have me resing. But personally I would not have been offended by it, it does´nt change the way the game was played, and you can still judge for yourself if your happy with the way you played or not. I don´t really see why a win by checkmate is better than one by resigning.