Why do so many higher rated players time out rather than resign?

Why do so many higher rated players time out rather than resign when they are in a losing position? Is it pride? Intent to annoy? Something else?

This has happened to me more than a few times. I understand when new players let games time out - maybe they try the site, start a few games and then don't come back.

The game above was allowed to time out. Why not just resign and "thanks for the game"? Seems rude.... I am such a tender flower...

Character deficiency appears to be the obvious answer, some players haven't got it into their thick heads that losing is an integral part of chess, for everyone. Players of the past had to deal with losing when the game was conducted face-to-face but today's internet player need never acknowledge this fact.

You can give people the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was actually an accident and s/he just happened to be losing that particular game. Or, maybe it is pride. I don't think its personal/malice. I don't think there is anything you can do about that kind of bad sportsmanship, besides just not play that person again and pay it as little mind as possible. Play with the people who are friendly and good sports.

Hi guys,

I agree with Prawneatsprawn.  Their is no excuse for this.  If not continuing the game your opponent should have curtiously resigned.  He certainly should have curtiously resigned in this game.

I have never seen this behavior in a 'higher' ranked player.  But I have encounted this with lower ranked players.  Most higher ranked players are good sports.

Watch your back rank.

I think it gets less common with higher rated players.

I wouldn't consider that a high rated player. Putting queen in front of a discovered attack?

Well, higher is relative I guess - he is WAY higher than me

Here's one side of the story:

I have quite the time out ratio which spawns from not having a computer of my own. I play usually a dozen or so cc games at a time. The one's where I'm in a difficult situation tend to stay hanging and I'll tell myself to come back to think about it when I've got more time. But alas, not owning suitable hardware I can't always get around in time which results in me sometimes losing some of my games (I think the worst one was 9 games at a time totalling some 200 rating points, and that was due to being ill - I'd sure like that premium membership for the vacation time).

Never the less, not all of the games lost are losing ones. I've timed out on many an occation with an absolutely crushing position, which - believe me - stings even more.

Anyhow, I think this might be quite a common reason for at least part of the time-outer's community.

PS. My sincerest appologies to all my opponents who've had to wait extra few days for their victory

Maybe the player simply forgot? I started playing corres chess in March and the first thing I did was sign up for a bunch of tournaments. What I did not notice was they all started on April 1st. Come that day, my total games went from 10 to 50.

A couple times, I almost timed out a few games... once I was simply lucky that I woke up at 4 AM and remembered the games.

To be fair though... White should have resigned.

I wondered that too when the time was getting short but then I checked his game page and basically he just played around our game and let it lapse.

I'm not esp. annoyed (I won the game after all) but it did make me wonder what the intent was - to never give up or whatever.

Well...on to the next sacking!

Well, whatever the reason is for the time-out, I don't think that you should let it take away from the joy of winning the game. Appreciate the fact that you won the game and move on.

People will be people. We all have our own weird reasons for doing things. I try not to stress myself too much over these things. I think that's the best approach you should take to this situation.

I know that if it were me, I'd just click "resign" in a hopeless situation. Why even endure the pain any longer?

I timed out once too because I didn't check games... some were just starting and some were in lost and crushing positions... that doesn't mean I have bad sportsmanship!

I don't think this has anything to do with rating but everything to do with the the person. Of course there isn't really a problem with timing out. It's called "forfeiting on time".

Making such a gross generalization seems premature and ignorant. Plus, this person is only rated 1600! That's barely above average for the site.

But to address the topic; I recently forfeited after 8 moves because I recognized I had made a key positional error. Many people would play out a bad position but I personally choose not to. There is nothing inherantly wrong with either decision. It just IS.

Very true. Many masters say that when a player is at the C class/B class level (and even those higher and lower) if they "blunder check" before making every move they will gain 100-250 pts to their rating. Higher rated players naturally have this process as part of their decision making process but I often have to remind myself to check each of my moves for a line I might be missing.

One guy so far in a tournament has bought two platinum memberships for timeout protection, and has been playing for 5 months in this particular round.  It's frusturating to the others... If you are to move slow, I would think it would be courteous to move 1 every 3 days, not 1 every 6 days, run out of vacation time, and buy some more time just to play out losing games. 

"One guy so far in a tournament has bought two platinum memberships for timeout protection"

You'll have to elaborate on that statement, seems to make no sense. As far as I am aware, it's one member, one membership.

@thesexyknight

I blunder check all the time before moving, I think what the best response of my opponent will be---and sometimes I still end up blundering... Not much of a 100 point gain ;P

Lol. Excuse me. You have to SUCCESSFULLY blunder check ;). And considering you already blunder check, you've probably already gotten those points

"considering you already blunder check, you've probably already gotten those points "

Cruel.

p.s.

What puzzles me is why chess.com allows 14 day intervals at all, when ICCF allows only 10. I had to wait 14 days to learn my opponent wasn't planning to answer Move #1, after he had timed out previously. It was a two-game tournament which I didn't realize was 14 days. What a waste.