Resign OR Finish Game

It's really irritating having stayed long for a game that is possibly to end well with one end winning only for the opponent to resign without any good reason just because he/she don't want you gain more points. Why play when you know you can't. It's all for fun but do everyone see it like the way you see it. I think a good chess player should be a die-hard player who no matter the condition would stand to face the music even at the point of no piece on-board except when the king is captured.

"to resign without any good reason just because he/she don't want you gain more points."

Huh? You don't get more points if there's more moves played in the game... And I would disagree and say that resigning a losing game is gentlemanly and is part of chess etiquette.

"I think a good chess player should be a die-hard player who no matter the condition would stand to face the music even at the point of no piece on-board except when the king is captured."

You can't capture a king in non-blitz games, and when a game is obviously lost it's not a matter of being "die-hard".

By the way, try to be less confusing when you write, it seems like your posts are always very strangely written. And in all your posts I've seen it sems like your whining about something...games too long, people resigning, what now? Are you gonna whine about people checkmating you as well?

only for the opponent to resign without any good reason just because he/she don't want you gain more points.--  mark_n_tosh

If you win by checkmate, resignation, or time you should get points.

I think a good chess player should be a die-hard player who no matter the condition would stand to face the music even at the point of no piece on-board except when the king is captured. -- mark_n_tosh

GMs resign all the time in lost positions. 5 out of my last 9 wins were won by resignation, 4 were by mate. I don't mind either way. Actually, I prefer when my opponent resigns when they're obviously lost so we can both move on.

Look at it this way. If you resign before you get checkmated, you can walk around saying "I haven't been checkmated in my last 1 Billion games."

mark_n_tosh wrote:
It's really irritating having stayed long for a game that is possibly to end well with one end winning only for the opponent to resign without any good reason just because he/she don't want you gain more points. ...

I don't think that I have ever met a chess player that resigned without any good reason. There always seems to be a good reason when people resign; anything alse would be just weird.

It would be very strange if somebody resigned just for the reason that he didn't want to get points. I really doubt that anybody resigned for that reason. Have you ever met somebody that said he didn't want points so he resigned for that reason?

I have once met somebody that resigned because he told me he had 200 games going (it was on another site) and he found out that he couldn't handle that many games so he simply resigned some of the games so he had an amount of games that he could handle. So that was one instance of a player resigning without having a lost position. I would call that an exception.

If a player considers that his position is a lost position, it means that he can not find any sensible continuation, he can't find a way of getting out of the trouble, he can't find any tactical surprises, he simply can't find any game play, well then he usually resigns. So for that player the game is actually finished at that point.

If players continue to play in a lost postion then it is usually because they don't consider that the position is lost, or at least they still think that they have a chance. You could say that they are simply still having a game going. When to resign is a very individual matter which is strongly related to the player's playing strenght.

I believe that there always is a chance. -- CheeckMatee

I have a database of 3.5 million games. In King and Queen vs King, where the side with the queen is USCF 1250 or above, there were 0 stalemates. There's a point when there's no more chances... or they're astronomically slim, like there being an earthquake in the middle of your game and the scorecard is accidently lost. Of course, if your opponent is in very serious time trouble, then play on and hope they run out of time!

At your level (Chess.com 1200 ~= USCF 1000) playing everything out is more reasonable. When I was ~= USCF 900 I scored some nice stalemates several pieces down.  :)

 And i will agree and save some time...

If the game is a foregone conclusion,then the gentlemanly thing to do is resign. However,if you are in the game to learn more about chess and endgames,then why not stick around for the conclusion? And i agree with the above,it is the option of the player-without being a jerk and just delaying the inevitable. Since these games are all in fun(this is not my livelihood),what difference does it really make? Enjoy the game and camraderie-don't get tangled up in the little things= you'll live longer and enjoy life more!

I like to think I am a die hard player and I dont give up easy, and like any decent player who knows when the game is up and who has looked at all there options before making the desision to resign. I also don't see the point in wasting time and energy too play out a losing game when my time and concentration can be spent on other games. Maybe you are just one of those people who don't feel you have won unless you checkmate your opponent, further my friend just in case you don't know, if your opponent resigns that is as good as a checkmate and your opponent has has admitted defeat so accept it without moaning

Personally I believe that you shouldn't resign.  Not that those of you who are resigning is wrong.  It's just that my grandfather (who taught me chess)  never gave up no matter how far behind on pieces he was.  He always said that if his going to lose, his going to give his opponent a taugh time to mate him.  I mean, if you lose, way not play risky and try tricky moves!!  Sometimes it works and you win a losing game!!

Secondly it gives you practise to come up with solutions!!  And, by keep on playing, you can learn how to play i.e. the endgame by following your opponents moves.  Personally i've learned more from the opponents that have beten me, than from the games that i've won!!

OK, if your mate in two and there's nothing you can do about it ----  What's the point?? 

Josh of Chessmaster player description at the age of 8 says something along the lines of never gave up even when in losing positions.  But I think it probably was influential in helping him to understand the game proficiently, and if it was good for him it can’t be bad for me either. Which is how I look at it.

Josh is a great model to follow! He never gave up on losing positions where there were still drawing chances, but he resigned lost positions.

For example, in Waitzkin-Sarwer,1985 Josh resigned in the following position. After 44.Kxf2 Rxd1 he's got B+P vs R+R+N+P. He realized there are no drawing chances and so immediately resigns. He doesn't force his opponent to play the game out to checkmate because the win is trivial, but he did play on this far.

I consider myself a not bad player and I don't give up losing positions unless I know for certain 100% that I have lost meaning I cannot make a viable move that will get me out of a lost position. I don't need to be a GM to know when no matter what I do the game is still lost and I even consider whether I can force a draw and if there is any possible chance then I will continue to the death. I also take into consideration the way my opponent has played and whether he will make a mistake or not. This is not a dig by the way, I would always say to a new player stick it out because they will learn the end game allot quicker and will also learn from the mistakes they have made as we all do