29 Apr '07 17:02>
Originally posted by PhlabibitI understand the point you are making, but I don't think that's the whole picture. Your reasoning shows that if you play a finite number of games and then stop then you will have a higher rating at the end if you resign your lost games earlier rather than later. So your rating at retirement will be higher if you are a prompt resigner. But maybe not at all points during your career, which is what most players care about.
You read it wrong... or perhaps I wasn't clear.
resigning a lost game HELPS your rating. If you draw it out, and win a couple more games in the meantime... you lose more points when you finally do resign.
I'll read what I wrote and see if I miss-spoke.
P-
I wrote it right, give it another read.
Let's take an example. Players A and B have the same rating, and play identical games against identical opponents, except that player A resigns a game promptly, whereas player B drags it out for an extra month. For the month after player A resigns, he will have a lower rating than player B. Thereafter, other things being equal, he will have a higher rating, for the reason you state, and this will last for much more than a month (although if they have identical results, in the long term their ratings will converge again). So it seems A is better off, as you suggest, except for a short interim period. However, if by the end of the month there is another game which A has resigned but B is dragging out, then A will have suffered a further ratings hit which B has not (yet), and A may have the lower rating for a bit longer yet.
Although in theory the losses will get B eventually, in practice if he plays a lot of games and drags all the losses out, it may take years before he's worse off than A.
I hesitated to point this because I don't want to encourage B-like behaviour. But equally, I don't think anyone should abandon games which they still have a slight chance of saving because they think losing slowly is worse than losing quickly.
I don't think I did misread your previous post incidentally. What I meant was, losing always hurts your rating, but you were suggesting resigning hurts it less than losing later. I guess the reason you thought I misunderstood was because you were coming at it from a different angle: presumably, you would say resigning doesn't hurt your rating, because if you're lost the damage has already been done.