Why do Grandmasters resign?

One can always find  rare examples but the reasons gms resign remain the same.

One additional reason, not mentioned, that I experienced, is reaching the time control.

many times I have an opponent reduced to moving his king back and forward on just 2 squares whilst my pawn queens and then puts us both out his misery! thats what I call hopeless and should resign much sooner

If I recall correctly, one of those games could have been won, or saved based on an outrageous combination that is quite difficult to find while on the clock.

O.P.: By the way, durning the game of the century Fischer vs. Byrne, neither one of them were GMs. In fact, Byrne never became a GM.

The point is that Marco resigned because he believed he was losing. The only way that Black could've been not losing (and in fact winning) was if he had noticed ...Bg1. He obviously did not, and playing on with some move other than ...Bg1 wouldn't have done him much more good than resigning right away.

It just shows disrespect and bad etiquette not to resign in a hopeless position. I do not resign, however, when my opponent is about to run out of time, of course.

I recall a game where Anand resigned on move six. The reason he gave (later) was that playing on in such a hopeless position would have resulted in his fellow GMs mocking him.

"It just shows disrespect and bad etiquette not to resign in a hopeless position"

You assume the only reason not to resign is thinking your opponent is bad at chess (or perhaps being bad at chess yourself). While that's one possible reason, you overlook alternatives. I can be almost certain I will lose, but even then playing on isn't a risky decision for me since I don't lose extra points.

Oh, turns out that vladimir guy blocked me. I must have played him before and didn't resign before move four. Oh well, guess I just wasn't strong enough to calculate the 30 move forced mate that was about to happen to me.

(Actually never mind, he's way worse at chess than me judging by the ratings. There's no way in hell I would have lost to him)

didn't Tony Miles once seal a move for the adjournment.

When the opponent came back the next day and opened the envelope, it said "resigns".

that's resigning to cause maximum annoyance. He wasn't the most gracious of losers, by all accounts. the story may be apocryphal.

sometimes though they resign one move away from an unstoppable checkmate when they can give their opponent the pleasure of checkmating them.

Because not resigning can be equivalent to wearing a big sign reading "I am an idiot", as well as wanting to preserve one's focus and energy. Meanwhile, so-called trash talk results in immediate disqualification and loss of game, sometimes ejection from competition.

Time4Tea wrote:

'Cause they know they're gonna lose and just want to hit the free bar?  ;-)

it is very common for GMs to work together so they share and split a prize money.

they through their games on purpose.

 in amateur games why would you resign unless you're down a ton of material or there is no way to stop a passed pawn? people play badly at amateur level, i dont care when people dont resign against me, because i've lost before when i've been up cause my tactics suck. helps practice endgame

because grandmasters rarely blunder, so almost no chance of coming back from lost position, while we blunder a lot compared to grandmasters and we have chance of coming back so we dont resgin,  I guess

HOBBY

is it not just laziness?