Trolling opponents

We all have those moments at the end of games where we can promote several pawns and our opponents doesn't resign hoping for stalemate. This is when we bring in the trolling. Post your favorite trolling mates here!

King mate, my signature checkmate lol

Nice

Lol I had one like this

Ah, trolling. Unfortunately, I never get to troll. But believe me, I'm great at being trolled! 

this is unsportmanklike behavior. I'M REPORTING YOU ALL RICE!

nope

Oh, we have a Karen here!

XD

xDDDD

Wait, I didn't get it...

I remember at the time I wasn't aware of the draw from position. I was actually winning and bam. Draw by position repetition, not for just repetition.

-GC

To see more about unfamiliar chess rules: 

https://www.chess.com/amp/article/learn-how-to-play-chess

rip

Oh this was years ago everyone. I'd be happy to post it because it's a funny game.  

A variant of trolling is undertaking to play a game with the goal of making a certain type of mate, particularly when players are of greatly different strength levels.  Way back in my hubristic high school years in the '70s I would give a handicap by trying to mate the weak players in the club with an h-pawn.  One player in the opening decided to sac a piece for my h-pawn to avoid that mate.  I eventually drove him to the h-file pinned a piece against his king and then advanced my g-pawn to take that piece and become my new h-pawn that later delivered mate.  The humorous ingenuity did take away most of the sting of the h-pawn mate but 20/20 hindsight does not make it look particularly kind.

This counts as stalling and shows poor sportsmanship, just checkmate him if you're able to, maybe he figures that he has a shot at creating a stalemate which is perfectly fine.

The more queens you promote the least likely I am to resign lol. Just prove you can ladder mate me and I'll resign.

There have been times I've directed high school tournaments and one coach will come to me with a complaint that the opponent of one of his players is "prolonging the agony" by underpromoting and going for something like a six knight mate.  My standard response is that the opponent is not the only one prolonging the agony as it can be ended immediately with a resignation.

One of the better take-aways of "The Queen's Gambit" mini-series was when the coach told Beth when it was time to resign.

That said, many player do not realize when their position is lost and they should resign.  The most appropriate way of playing against them is to simply play the best moves and reaching a winning position that the recognize as resignable (or deliver the mate if they don't see it).  If you assume cluelessness is really defiantly prolonging a lost game, and if you respond by trolling-like extra promotions (maybe including underpromotions), then there is a chance that the defiance will succeed in garnering a stalemate.

There was one simul where a GM (playing White) had a winning ending (a piece and multiple pawns up).  The opponent's last pawn was on e6 so he took his previously captured queen and placed it in front of him for when he would promote it.  The GM looked at that, looked at the board, quickly pointed his finger at each of his own pawns as he counted them, and then went to the completed boards to get the five White queens that he could promote to.  Everybody (including the opponent) laughed and the opponent immediately resigned.  The humor involved recalls the old dictum that "the threat is stronger than the execution".

No, that was actually the worst scene of the entire show and I'll tell you why.

That scene tells all the new players that "when you lose an important piece the game is over and you need to resign" which is so incredibly stupid, players, especially new players, need to learn to play when they are down, that is how they learn and improve their game, by figuring out new ways to win the game.

Also, new players make blunders, so just because you've lost your queen or a valuable piece doesn't mean the game is over, far from it, you need to keep going and find a way to turn it around, that scene really annoyed me because Beth wanted to continue but he just stopped her.

When I was younger I used to play in tournaments, there were many times when I lost a valuable piece, even the queen, but I did not resign, I kept going, and the psychological aspect of it is that your opponent will most likely get cocky and overlook things once he's captured your queen, and I've been able to use that in order to actually capture their queens afterwards with a fork or dagger, and let me tell you, the defeat that they then feel is absolutely crushing, going from a clearly winning position to a losing one.

It is a great feeling to overcome like that and win the game and it's really bad that a lot of players resign so easily, they won't progress as well.

Now for higher ranking players it is different and you should resign if you know that your opponent clearly will be able to chechmate you and your opponent knows how.

Some people feel that they deserve to be able to deliver a checkmate.  Most feel that a dead-lost opponent should simply resign so that both players can rest up for the next round of the tournament or to do something else (maybe play another game) if it is not a tournament.