Why?

Apparently you haven't studied many Master games. They resign for much, much, much less. This is kind of how they think:

Down a Queen = Opponent has nuclear superiority

Down a piece = Like trying to take down a tank while armed with a knife

Down a pawn = You brought a knife to a gunfight, but maybe you can draw a tricky endgame

Down 0 but have positional weaknesses = Good chance your opponent will still win =/

I don't think it should be considered a sign of disrespect if someone doesn't resign.  I get a certain satisfaction out of seeing a game played out to checkmate.  ...I'm one of those people who doesn't leave the theatre when I can predict the ending so that I beat traffic.  I enjoy watching the ending to a good story.

A queen?!?!!?!?!?

If i lost a piece i'd resign

three moves into a came,took a higher rated player's queen, I won,can not remember if he resigned or because of time

I'm glad these players ain't defending my country, as soon as they loose their captain they stick their hands up in the air and wave the white flag.....

Chess players, not soldiers... geddit?

It's more like when you're weightlifting and a little one pound weight falls off one side. Do you stop lifting? Do you run off to the showers and call it a night? Not if you're a man anyway. You just keep lifting and keep your eyes on the goal.

P.S. The pain of admitting my ignorance is too great and may lead to ... learning.

P.P.S. Yuck!!

P.P.P.S. What the hell is wrong with all you quitter cowards!!!

Actually, even at that level, I think resigning there was premature. In fact, I don't think that position is necessarily a forced loss. What's so resignable about black's position after ...Kd8? It's annoying to play, but in my opinion very far from resignable at any level. Or maybe I'm missing a strong tactical continuation for white. That's likely!

I'm glad you're not defending my country, a delusional captain with too much hubris to surrender when he is beaten.

"But sir, we've lost half our platoon, and we're pinned down by sniper fire: there is no way we can advance!"

"Dammit fool, just dodge the bullets. I don't care if we all die!"

That's an awsome response.  I love it.  That should have been the end of this thread!

Yeah these threads have been around way too much. The answer is fairly obvious, it really is just relative to what strength you are. If someone drops a queen or a major piece against me I know for sure I will win and I kind of get annoyed when people try to play it out, unless of course I'm at a positional disadvantage as mentioned earlier. It all just matters on the strength of the player, as soon as I know that I have the advantage I'm just going to force people to trade off their pieces and have an easy end game. For weaker players this may not be the case, but again it is all relative to strong of a player you are.

What difference would it make if the resignation option were removed? Anyone for kobayashi-maru?

It is good, but you could argue that the last point makes some sense. Some people like to torture their opponent.

Actually, I generally love it when people resign, or in a game I'm thinking like "please resign!" when I'm in a strong position (even though I'm quite sure they won't), but you know, sometimes subconciously I almost want them to play on (I'm not talking about rediculous situations, I mean winning positions that might still take technique) so I can slowly little by little crush them and show them how hideous their position really is when they realize they're in zugzwang and can't move! It's satisfying to slowly outmaneouver an opponent without help from them (be it them blundering tactically or resigning early). But of course at a tournament, I could never complain.

Neck deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to press on.

Generally, I agree here. But I don't take pleasure in 'teaching' my opponent, by putting them in "zugzwang". I'd rather they resign, and move on with their chess life. I'm not going to be mad if they don't resign, that's their choice, but, I love tension in the position. I love the conversation/debate of the moves. It satisfies me when my opponent tells me: 'You have already shown that you are strong enough to win this position.' That means my opponent was 'listening' to me.

Of course, I could miss mate in one and lose...but those things happen

Haha thanks. I got lazy wth analysis because modern calvin was acting as if it's so bad it's resignable. Now, that is true (for GM level anyway) for the position you posted, but for example the line with Nxf6 was the only thing I looked at and indeed it looks like he can fight for a draw. It's not so much the position itself but the position spassky foresaw it would become after some forced moves.

Still though, it was a very funny time to resign! I suspect he did it to make him look good and figured he would probably lose anyway.

I wasn't saying that it was resignable for everyone. The point of the illustration was to show that GMs are known to resign for much less, including such a position where you are down 0 material, but have one or more positional weaknesses. If such a position is resignable for a GM, then it would stand to reason that they would never play on when down a Queen, which is what the OP was trying to argue!

It's a chess game. If I am down a queen with no compensation I would resign, especially early in the game.

Don't draw comparisons between chess to war or defending yourself. It's completely different. Winston Churchill's quote "Never, never, never give up." shouldn't apply to chess. If you're not interested in seeing the game to the end... by all means, just start a new game and save some time.

You have it all wrong. When a chess player resigns a game it doesn't necessarily mean they are calling it quits. It means they have caught their mistake and want to start another game. The comparison is closer to benching 120 pounds dropping it and picking up that same 120 pounds and lifting it again. If that 120 pounds is too heavy they try something lighter.

Resigning is not admitting ignorance (not necessarily a bad thingy, btw). In any given game I resign because I've learned my lesson and I can tell I will not win against my opponent. After I resign I start a new game to continue learning more from my opponent. Does that sound cowardice to you?

Goldendog was joking I believe. Goldendog is always right unless he's joking

I actually didn't like his weight lifting analogy though.