Originally posted by foilI just wish the whole lot of trash players would resign much earlier while they're losing.😕
If you are about to lose, you should always resign before being checkmated. A player should never allow his king to suffer the humiliation. You should never miss an opponent's checkmate in correspondence style chess.
Originally posted by foilthere was once a grandmaster who never got checkmated...he always resigned before it happened!
If you are about to lose, you should always resign before being checkmated. A player should never allow his king to suffer the humiliation. You should never miss an opponent's checkmate in correspondence style chess.
fred
Originally posted by invigorateYou don't understand. It's a general statement.
Quite a bold statement after 11 moves. I'm sure you're suffering waiting for your opponents to resign.
Besides, I played some email chess at another site and the worst turn off in correspondence chess is players who don't know when to resign.
Originally posted by WeadleyThat's an excellent point...
I've missed mate in one before.
I would advise all to be sure that thier opponent is of high enough caliber to not miss thier mating chances before resigning.
Many moons ago (about 33 years ago, to be exact), I managed to checkmate a friend of mine who, instead of finishing me off when he had the chance, decided to pick up a couple of more queens and REALLY crush me... I managed a back-rank mate using my Knight and Rook, the only two pieces I had... my friend had his Queen, both Rooks and 4 or 5 pawns left... the final position was similar to this...
While he was advancing his passed pawns, I snuck my Knight to g4, and then, after another pawn move, checkmated him by moving my Rook from e1 to e8 and presto...mate... I've never fogotten that game to this day...I was in 6th grade at the time...
And Stephen, if you're out there, don't worry, I won't use your last name.
My opponent was a relative beginner who just learned to play during that school year, and I had been playing for quite some time by then...I played a lousy game up to that point, but then the light bulb went on, and I PRAYED he wouldn't see the reason for my "meaningless" Knight move to g4...(or "King Knight 5" , as we would have called it back then).
Against a decent player, I certainly would have resigned in that situation... in fact I definitely would have resigned if he had moved the g-pawn to give the King an escape square, because a back rank mate was my only chance...of course, a truly decent player would have finished me off quickly, and not worried about getting one or two more Queens
Nothing wrong with resigning a hopeless situation, but make sure your opponent knows what they're doing...
When you play a game of chess, there is an implied arrangement that your opponent can resign when he wants, if he wants, all the way up to checkmate. So can you. I know it's annoying when you play correspondence because there is considerably more time than OTB, but when you have overwhelming odds there isn't much you can do wrong so it doesn't take much effort to think of a move. It isn't worth the few rating points you have to wait for to get your underwear tangled in knots. Just start another game and consider it money in the bank.
I am not an experienced player but I will usually resign if more than one major piece down, assuming position about equal. However, I have played a game a queen and several pawns down and still won. There is also the option of attempting a stalemate. Although it is annoying to chase a king around the board with one move a week, I don't think it fair to not allow your opponent the chance for a draw if that's what they want to do.
What is annoying is when a player moves frequently and then when they think they are losing, move to a slow crawl.