Resignation Etiquette

mandelshtam - thank you for a well considered report of your experiences - a shining light to point the way    

mandelshtam wrote:

I know personally more than 500 chess players in Germany, (There are about 10 000 registerede club players in our country, the highest numberr of registered players in the world!), I played at many Open tournaments in Germany, I played before the fall of the wall for about 15 years in regional league of Sachsen (part of Eastern germany), my opponents mostly  had and have ratings between 1900 to 2300 Elo or DWZ (Deutsche Wertzahl). After the fall I played much less (Profession!), but I was memebr of a chess club in Colgne (West part of germany) for two years. A big majority the players with ELO rating resign after being a piece down, if the opponent is not in huge time trouble.

(Clearly, the higher rated players often resign after being 'only' two pawns down, if they don't have counterplay).

I was in Hungary, in 1986, 1987, at two open tournaments, where teams of Austria, Poland, FRG, GDR, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary played, again the same picture.

I visited chess clubs in the Moscow, Kiev, St. Petersburg (I stayed there 6 month, in 1986),  Vitebsk (Belarus, in 1994), and watched team competitions. The same picture again.

I have friends from the former Soviet Union (GM Kovalev, GM Khalifman, GM Tchutchelov), you may ask them, they will confirm my experience and opinion.    

So the answer to my question whether you know a majority of the players in Germany is a resounding "no." Even accepting your claim of knowing 500 players personally, you know 5% of the players.

Has it occurred to you that what is appropriate behavior for a player who is above 1900 might be different for a player who is only 1200? Have you not noticed the number of people who have been discussing this issue with a sensitivity to the differences between higher rated players and lower rated players?

What two GMs do when playing each other is hardly relevant to what two beginners do.

*yawn*

Wait, what?

I thought the whole science behind polling was that you can confidently say that some percentage of the overall population answers a question a certain way while posing the question only to a small fraction of the overall.

ozzie_c_cobblepot wrote:

Wait, what?

I thought the whole science behind polling was that you can confidently say that some percentage of the overall population answers a question a certain way while posing the question only to a small fraction of the overall.

Right, but only if you do a survey with a valid sample group so that you have a high confidence that the diversity of the group corresponds closely to the diversity of the population as a whole.

Duffer1965 wrote:

So the answer to my question whether you know a majority of the players in Germany is a resounding "no."

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You didn't ask that question. You asked how I know that what I believe is true, and that it is a valuable opinion.

A five- percent- poll can be representative and  statistically significant. (It's mathematics. Otherwise, how could they possibly know that Obama is first ahead and later equal with McCain in the nations opinion, from a poll  that involves only some ten thousand people, and that this poll is most probably significant? ) I am claiming my personal experience is significant. Although I cannot prove it, you cannot claim the contrary by just pointing to the small number of individuals involved. A clear picture could be painted by a scientific poll (which mine of course was not). But my report could give you reason to think.

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Has it occurred to you that what is appropriate behavior for a player who is above 1900 might be different for a player who is only 1200? Have you not noticed the number of people who have been discussing this issue with a sensitivity to the differences between higher rated players and lower rated players?

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Yes, I mentioned that several times in my threads that the resigning attitude depends on the level of the players, and that you cannot think bad about a player who doesn't resign because he just doesn't know that he is lost.

Unfortunately, it seems that many players with reasonable strength (1900 and above) still say 'never resign' here.

mandelshtam wrote:

Duffer1965 wrote:

So the answer to my question whether you know a majority of the players in Germany is a resounding "no."

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You didn't ask that question. You asked how I know that what I believe is true, and that it is a valuable opinion.

Perhaps in a parallel universe I asked that question. But in this universe, I asked this question: "Do you know a majority of the club players in Germany?"

Do you not care what the truth is? Do you think I can't look up a few posts and see exactly what it was that I wrote? What purpose does it serve to simply misstate the facts?

Duffer1965 wrote:

mandelshtam wrote:

Duffer1965 wrote:

So the answer to my question whether you know a majority of the players in Germany is a resounding "no."

---

You didn't ask that question. You asked how I know that what I believe is true, and that it is a valuable opinion.

Perhaps in a parallel universe I asked that question. But in this universe, I asked this question: "Do you know a majority of the club players in Germany?"

Do you not care what the truth is? Do you think I can't look up a few posts and see exactly what it was that I wrote? What purpose does it serve to simply misstate the facts?

ok, I agree, sorry, you indeed asked that question (I did not look back, and remembered not precisely the formulation...).

I assume you do not accuse me of bad intention.

I also assume that you want to find out the truth as well.

Your question showed that you believe that only knowing the majority of chess players and their opinion would give a significant answer.

I pointed out above that this is not necessarily the case.

I REALLY believe everything about this theme (resigning attitude) has been already said. The forum is too long and many threads above show that the authors didn't read what was pointed out (long ago) by others. So everything now seems to merely repeat things.

(resigning attitude)

seems like an adjustment

Is that a revised version of the topic - Etiquette?

All aspects: convictions, attitudes and finally etiquette towards resignation, taste like a very old chewing gum in my mouth now. Nothing new was heard since days about it.

The summary w.r.t. etiquette could be as follows: advanced chess players have a codex about 'timely resignation', beginners (and 'gamblers') have not.

The definition of 'timely resignation' may vary in the first group, depending on the strength of the players.

The players in the second group resign only if the fighting spirit is gone.

mandelshtam wrote:

Duffer1965 wrote:

mandelshtam wrote:

Duffer1965 wrote:

So the answer to my question whether you know a majority of the players in Germany is a resounding "no."

---

You didn't ask that question. You asked how I know that what I believe is true, and that it is a valuable opinion.

Perhaps in a parallel universe I asked that question. But in this universe, I asked this question: "Do you know a majority of the club players in Germany?"

Do you not care what the truth is? Do you think I can't look up a few posts and see exactly what it was that I wrote? What purpose does it serve to simply misstate the facts?

ok, I agree, sorry, you indeed asked that question (I did not look back, and remembered not precisely the formulation...).

I assume you do not accuse me of bad intention.

I also assume that you want to find out the truth as well.

Your question showed that you believe that only knowing the majority of chess players and their opinion would give a significant answer.

I pointed out above that this is not necessarily the case.

Wrong again. My question did not show that I believe any such thing.

It's almost humorous to me that given your track record you would think yourself qualified to interpret what I must have meant by my question. You seem to want to turn this around so that I look like the dolt. Well, sorry, but I don't want to wear the ass's ears today. Inventing a wrongheaded thing, claiming that I meant it, and then pointing out the error of the thing you invented is hardly impressive.

May I politely ask you why you asked your question then, if it was not implying that my experience is not relevant/significant?

You don't impress anybody with playing 'cat and mouse', and your continued suffisant florett attacks, 'given your track record'...

Since you did not give any counterargument against my report (you just gave it away) you implicitely agreed with me about the significance of it. Thank you.

"Since you did not give any counterargument against my report (you just gave it away) you implicitely agreed with me about the significance of it. Thank you."

Mandelsham - It began with your argument about ETIQUETTE and when it was proven that you lacked this as demonstrated by your own words you changed it and now you are going on and on and on and on..........

Tis sometimes better to keep one's mouth ???

Oh the Drama

Really man - what is this about? 

Life is short and yet you live in some silly fantasy trying to prove something like the piano dropped into the mine......

I never gave another definition than yours of etiquette, so i cannot have changed it. In my thread no.161 you find what i believe is the etiquette towards resignation. (That etiquette is not a unique one.  As well as people in England and in Arabic countries perhaps hold and use their knife differently during lunch.)

You also imply that I have left the theme of this forum by talking about not just the etiquette. But this happened logically in the course of this forum. BEFORE we can find the etiquette, we need to know attitudes and convictions about resignation, and an  opinion poll about it.

I urge you , as well as Duffer , artfizz ..., to contribute with arguments,  instead of searching for tiny imprecisions in my formulations, and masking the own opinion.

Bye.

"BEFORE we can find the etiquette, we need to know attitudes and convictions about resignation, and an  opinion poll about it."

OK buddy you are right

Keep on digging for the truth...........

until you find the piano that was dropped in the mine

Best

Don't resign EVER. Even down to an obvious loss(king and either queen or rook) you have hope for stalemate by blunder(someone once did that in rook vs rook after skewer for a rook, the two blunders canceled each other out). And if it is more complicated(e.g. queen vs rook) not only are your drawing chances good and difficult to break, but you could even win on rare occasions.

It was people that talk too much, always have to have the last word, and even if they are wrong make it out that in the end they are STILL right (like Mandelshtam) that got all the soap-on-a-roap, towel tie-downs, and sucker punches in the dark when I was in the service.  No offense, but from what I've seen and heard (and read EVERY post) that it would have been better to resign...the thread...for Mandelshtam.  You make a point, other people don't like it, and THEN the error committed was to CONTINUE analyzing why they don't like it.

     No offense.  Trying to be objective here.  And polite :)

Incidentally I will be starting a new thread of my own if anyone is interested...a parallel to resigning...called "Kobayashi Maru".

So wait then, am I supposed to be offended when someone takes the entire 3 days per move, or what? What if they are moving quickly, and then after they blunder a knight, then they "stretch out" the game? I'm confused here, can you point me in the right direction?