When to Resign

Your opponent not resigning can be quite annoying, but asking your opponent to resign is 1000x less classy.

When I resign a lost game, it's to do myself a favour, not my opponent. Why burn calories on the slim chance my opponent is going to blunder away their material advantage, walk into a forced mate, or stalemate my sorry butt? But those possibilities are out there; otherwise, there'd be no scope for for amazing come-back stories in the game of chess, for one thing, and lord knows some games can be roller-coasters, especially for the blunder-prone, like myself. So for me, it often comes down to a question of emotional & mental stamina in the moment...
If I see my opponent has mate in 1 or 2, do I resign? Not usually. Why deny him or her the pleasure of delivering a good ol' fashioned checkmate?
I'm constantly bemused by those who take their opponents' refusal to resign as a personal affront. As this thread (and about a dozen or two others I've read) strongly attests, people feel differently about it: Some see resignation as a poor way to end a chess game, while others can learn something by seeing their ignoble fate thru to the bitter end. You may differ on a question of style, but it's misguided, I think, to attach the kind of value to the act of non-resignation that makes it some kind of insult. Personally, I rather enjoy playing when I'm way out ahead of my opponent; I can relax a bit and still focus on sharpening my skills by looking for the quickest kill. What could be better? :-)


This doesn't quite make sense does it? I think with Chess.com your rating change according to your current rating at the end of the game, which is a bit silly. If the guy is going to win other games, then his rating increase which means he will be worse off because he is the weaker player and an increase in his ratings will make him a less weaker player. In gameknot, the rating change is based upon your rating when you started the game, which seems a bit more sensible to me, because there is less manipulation that can be done - waiting for rating to change as result of other games in / ending play will not have any impact.
Plus, Larla, I do empathise with you - I see it as a sign of a good player, knowing when the game is over, but the guy is within his rights. Plus there were lots of mating opportunities that you missed! This is correspondence chess, and I play on about three sites, and there are always moves available on other sites, and if not, then I go to Pogo.com or somewhere else to have a real-time game of chess - I don't bother worrying about player waiting to take their turn, but it can always bug you when you now you have a won game and just want to take the points! Such things are sent to test us...


larla,
ganyan talaga ibang naglalaro ng online chess. hindi sila serious about the game. so just go on and checkmate them if you encounter that kind of player. pero you were right it wil cost us more for the internet fee.

he cant be just not playing because then he would lose on time.
and why does he have two move rite away isnt it his rite to wait and take his time
he obveasley sees no point in resining because he mise well play it out, it is not good to resine even if you are ahead aton. he probably figures it will be a learning experence for him.

You cannot assume your apponet is "smugly" sitting and hoping you'll get bored.....None of us can really know what is going on with our opponent as this is correspondence chess with players around the world.....don't blame your opponent if it costs you so much money to be on the internet...make your move and then log off....your opponent will either move or run out of time...no big deal...
This really should be called "I want to WHINE cuz my opponent wont resign!!!!!!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Please feel bad for me so my ego can be boosted.... Grow up and realize others may actually have problems worse than yours instead of your ficticious world view


You cannot assume your apponet is "smugly" sitting and hoping you'll get bored.....None of us can really know what is going on with our opponent as this is correspondence chess with players around the world.....don't blame your opponent if it costs you so much money to be on the internet...make your move and then log off....your opponent will either move or run out of time...no big deal...
This really should be called "I want to WHINE cuz my opponent wont resign!!!!!!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Please feel bad for me so my ego can be boosted.... Grow up and realize others may actually have problems worse than yours instead of your ficticious world view
If you have problems worse than this, then why are you playing Chess?

But I did and I skewered him, he did not go into vacation as he was so confident. Once again the male species misjudges the superior sex.

If you wanna instant game, get a board and play for free outside.
It is frustrating, but thats the rules!!!


You are right thats the rules but i think you can tell everyone that player xxx is such a player so people will be thankful...


Yeah yeah - there are lots of us that would like to play with Larla, and be more than happy to resign after '40 moves' (snark snark).