Your Opponent's Time Trouble

So, I play blitz exclusively, and I've noticed there's sort of an ethical dilemna in blitz chess (and perhaps tournament chess, too?) in regards to time. Often, I will be playing the losing side of a game, but my opponent got himself into some serious time trouble and I can easily stall and edge out a win. Much more often, the roles are reversed. :P

Anyway, I used to let my opponents clock run out, in hopes of snagging a win, but I realized that this is a pretty juvenile thing to do. I'm here to play chess, not to make my rating go up, and the way I played in the game isn't redeemed at all by the big 1-0; I was totally outplayed. But, on the other hand, my opponent forced himself into time trouble, and I don't think I should feel obligated to resign for his mistakes.

At the moment, I resign if I sympathize with the other player, which I usually do if he wasn't playing a 3 minute game like a 10 minute one. I still don't have a good solution, though. Is there some standard or precedent set? What do you do?

The standard procedure is to be a jerk and win on time even in a hopelessly lost position. What I do is if my opponent makes a blunder in a winning position under time trouble I offer a draw. If my opponent makes a blunder under time trouble in a close game or game I was winning I will not offer the draw and win (on time or checkmate)

Whats the point of playing a timed game if the time doesn't actually become a factor? If you are playing five minute time controls for example, that means you have 5 minutes to win or you lose. I don't understand people running out of time and complaining that they lost because they had a better position or were up a piece. If you want to play without the risk of losing on time, don't play a timed game. Simple.

I think it is fair to win on time because you did not violate any rules and did well to hang on to a losing position.  Your opponent should feel bad only if you get a full point even when your material is not sufficient  to win (due to logic issues).

I think everyone should win in chess.  If just one person wins then the other players might feel like he/she has done something wrong in life to lose.  In fact, we should call the "winner" first place and the "loser" second place. 

Seriously, accept your win on time and tell them good game.  There is no ethical delima here.

Yes, losing games hurts people's self-esteem.  Just make everyone winners and everyone's happy!

I agree that it's the result of the oppenents mistakes that he got into time trouble, however I still can't quite not feel stingy playing on in an utterly lost endgame, and I'm not going to waste my time or my opponent's playing the losing side in a K vs K+Q. I think Fischer's bonus time helps prevent against this, however.

Thanks for the responses.

Personally I would rather outplay my opponent and lose on time than to play a bad game and win because my opponent could not mate me in time. However, this could easily be avoided using extra time per move (5|3 is my new favourite from 5|0).

Here is a game I had recently in 5|0 playing black:

Since I never came across an opponent who wouldn't let me run out of time to score a win even if I was two queens up, that's the way I have to do too if I'm in the situation ...

The only exception for me is if it's a position that is technically a draw of insufficient material but might have a theoretical helpmate so that the software rules it as a loss for the out-timed player. In this case I offer a draw even if I'm the one with more time, and I hate it if an opponent stupidly pushes his pieces around the board in such a position in order to get me over time and score the win.