Lack of Good Manners on RHP

King saftey or lack thereof are the only factors in chess. 🙂
Material is a key if both kings are relatively secure. All the material in the world means nothing if you are mated or drawn.

Originally posted by Aldan
I find it sad that not one contributor has considered that civil behavior is as important on the chess board as it is in "real life". I hope that you do not insult your friends, members of your family, and business associates treating them (or expecting them to act as incompetent ninnies.

Resignation is for the benefit of the losing player, not the winning one.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
Resignation is for the benefit of the losing player, not the winning one.

Ooh! I like that.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
Resignation is for the benefit of the losing player, not the winning one.

Brilliant and true.

Originally posted by cadwah
Material means nothing, should I resign once I've sacced my queen, rooks, bishops and knights if I have a cute pawn checkmate next move?

Cue Greenpawn with a game fished out of the murky waters of RHP with such a scenario 😉

What is the most ominous material disadvantage that still permits a won position?

Maybe this:

White to mate in 13

Originally posted by Aldan
I find it sad that not one contributor has considered that civil behavior is as important on the chess board as it is in "real life". I hope that you do not insult your friends, members of your family, and business associates treating them (or expecting them to act as incompetent ninnies.

The terms "civil behavor" or "bad manners" don't apply to what happens on the board. Here is your biggest misunderstanding. Moves are just moves, they can't be judged by some moral or etiquette criteria.

Can we think of any situations where playing on in a lost position is the right thing to do?
A Grandmaster visits your local chess club to give a simul.
You have Black and reach this position

You know you will lose,but would it be bad manners to play on?
It might be bad manners to resign.He might want to demonstrate this win.
The Grandmaster comes round and you tell him you are considering resigning.
It wouldn't be at all surprising if he asked you to play it out "for the benifit of all"

Originally posted by Aldan
I find it sad that not one contributor has considered that civil behavior is as important on the chess board as it is in "real life". I hope that you do not insult your friends, members of your family, and business associates treating them (or expecting them to act as incompetent ninnies.

Well quite clearly you don't consider it important to use "civil behaviour" in the forums. If you'd bothered to do your research you'd have seen that this topic has been discussed before and some ( myself included.. dons flak jacket ) do consider it poor etiquette to not resign in a clearly lost position. But this is a web-site run by a computer. Computers don't care about etiquette. Apart from maybe C-3PO. But he was a protocol droid. He would likely resign. R2-D2 wouldn't since he was just an up-market home cinema projector. There's nothing you can do about it. Move on or write something funny.

Originally posted by jb70
Can we think of any situations where playing on in a lost position is the right thing to do?
A Grandmaster visits your local chess club to give a simul.
You have Black and reach this position
[fen]4K3/3BN3/8/8/3k4/8/8/8 b - - 0 1[/fen]
You know you will lose,but would it be bad manners to play on?
It might be bad manners to resign.He might want to demonstr ...[text shortened]... ng.
It wouldn't be at all surprising if he asked you to play it out "for the benifit of all"

The chap to your left might consider it bad manners also.

Originally posted by Aldan
I deem it very bad manners and insulting for a player who has an obviously lost position to play on in the forlorn hope that his adversary will commit a childish blunder. RHP appears to approve and institutionalize these bad manners in the posted diagrams of checkmates appearing on the home page as almost all of these diagrammed checkmates involve games wit ...[text shortened]... as to indicate that the games had been lost many moves before the checkmate. What to you think?

I remember there was a time in my early days of playing OTB chess that if I got caught in an opening trap and dropped a piece, I would resign immediately. I did not enjoy playing from behind. I still do not enjoy playing from behind, so you would probably enjoy playing me. However, I never thought of it as good manners to resign. I resigned in order not to prolong my own agony of defeat.

P.S. Maybe it would help to look at it as a challenge to find the quickest possible mate after you feel you have a won position. I probably should take that advise myself.

I will resign when my opponent is clearly heading for a forced mate or I don't have any material for counterplay. But not any time sooner!

What's the point in playing chess if you want to end the game once a significant inbalance is created? That's like deliberately missing half of the fun. Converting a won game into a win accurately (without losing tempi) is as hard as obtaining the won game in the first place. Playing on in a lost game, trying to make your opponent blunder (leading to a loss or draw), is equally challenging.

Ok, there is etiquette in GM-play, with early resignation (or draw). But, their horizon is far longer than ours, so they sooner see how lost their position is. Plus, they know the chance of a blundering opponent is very low.

Ok, there is etiquette in tournament play, with early resignation after material loss. But that benefits both players, as they would be less tired in the next game.

Here, we are just playing for the fun of the game. Let us be.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
Resignation is for the benefit of the losing player, not the winning one.

Why do many chess players choose opponents close to their own level? To get a game that involves a decent contest. Nobody criticises them for doing so. But yet, when a games loses all interest because it has became so evidently lost, why are the same players then criticised because they’d prefer to end this game and start another which is more of a contest?

I’m not talking about weak players who don’t realise they are so lost. I’m not talking about positions with genuine traps. I’m talking about positions where both sides know there is no contest but the loser simply doesn’t want to admit it. And in that case it’s a benefit to both players to end the game because it saves them both time.

Sure, the rules dictate what is legal and what is cheating. But there is room for respect too. If someone plays well enough to get to king and queen versus just my king, I may think “he may stalemate me and the rules allow me to play on” or I can think “let’s acknowledge the play that my opponent has actually displayed in this game rather than focusing on some minute chance”. Is my minute chance of avoiding a loss worth more to me than showing some respect? Each to their own on that one but I like to show some respect to others and not just think of myself.

>> Resignation is for the benefit of the losing player, not the winning one.

Only if you think being shown no respect is fine.

There was (he is still alive, but not much active) Yugoslavian GM, Milan Matulovic, who was notorious for adjournments in dead lost positions, with the explanation, that he would feel better to read in morning paper that "his game is abandoned" than tgat he had lost.

He got a short lasting nick name Mrs. Jadoub-man during interzonal tournament in Sousse 1967, when he played a move, then changed his mind and played another with another piece. I think his opponent was Bouazis.

P.S
I had played once a correspondence game in Yugoslavia for some thirty years ago, and my opponent was mad because I did not want to resign. He wrote [s]MILAN MATULOVC[/s] strikethrough, and my name was writen below.
The point was, that I simply did not see I was going to be checkmated in a few moves, otherwise I would resign, and at the time I was wondering why he was so nervous at the time, but obviously he was so eager to score the point.

Anyway, in correspondence chess is allowed to hope your opponent would die in the course of game as a result of some accident.
But, if your opponent dies and you happen to benefit a lot from that point, you might expect a visit from police detective... You had a motive!

Originally posted by Aldan
I find it sad that not one contributor has considered that civil behavior is as important on the chess board as it is in "real life". I hope that you do not insult your friends, members of your family, and business associates treating them (or expecting them to act as incompetent ninnies.

It is uncivil for you to want to force the conduct of another player to your whims beyond what the rules of the game allow you to do. I appreciate that the tempo is not what you would like, but projecting your frustrations on the other guy is pointless.

(At the same time, you should read kingshill's profile!)

I recently had a game with petethesweep where I was easily winning, and used 16 conditional moves in a row to expedite the game. I was just as annoyed as you, but in my opponent's defense, it was a clan game, and I was always one extended internet outage away from losing. He did finally resign when it got down to bishop and not-a-rook-pawn vs king.

What really annoyed me was that he waited until the last moment of a long time control to make his move each time, dragging things out further. However, I agreed to the time control at the beginning of the game, so if I want to blame someone, I have to start with myself.

Originally posted by Varenka
Why do many chess players choose opponents close to their own level? To get a game that involves a decent contest. Nobody criticises them for doing so. But yet, when a games loses all interest because it has became so evidently lost, why are the same players then criticised because they’d prefer to end this game and start another which is more of a contes ...[text shortened]... of the losing player, not the winning one.

Only if you think being shown no respect is fine.

The respect is there. You just have to learn to recognize it. It's there in the sullen look on their face as they continue to mechanically move pieces around in a dead lost position.