Resignation

Why does it seem so hard for some people to resign? If you are only making one move per day it can take weeks (!) to win an already won game!

Originally posted by ianpickering
Why does it seem so hard for some people to resign? If you are only making one move per day it can take weeks (!) to win an already won game!

Why? Who knows?

I've got one game that's been going on for over 7 months now. It's down to where I can play it on autopilot as a guaranteed win. For most of the game he never made a move in less than the entire 2 weeks allowed by the time control. (I'll never accept another 14-day TO!) Then for about 10 moves he sped up, sometimes making multiple moves in a day. I think he smelled blood and thought it was mine. 😉 Now that it has become obvious that I am going to win, he has slowed down again. At the present rate, it could be a year before the game is over.

Why does he want to do that? I have no idea.

Paul

Originally posted by prn
Why? Who knows?

I've got one game that's been going on for over [b]7 months now. It's down to where I can play it on autopilot as a guaranteed win. For most of the game he never made a move in less than the entire 2 weeks allowed by the time control. (I'll never accept another 14-day TO!) Then for about 10 moves he sped up, sometimes making multiple m ...[text shortened]... ld be a year before the game is over.

Why does he want to do that? I have no idea.

Paul
[/b]

While I tend to think in general that one's time is one's own to use however one chooses, I agree that it's bad form to drag out a lost game interminably. I do tend to slow down in games that I find confounding or troublesome (partly because those games seem less fun, and I tend to click first on the games that I'm enjoying) but I try to always resign those that are clearly lost

The one time I might move slowly on purpose is if I feel that the player I'm playing against has a dramatically deflated rating-- one of those players who occasionally goes on hiatus, gets timed out 150 times and returns with a rating hundreds of points below their actual skill. In that case I tend to think it's justified to go a bit slowly to allow their rating to creep back up to a more reasonable level (though of course if everyone did this the effect would cancel out).

Even in this case, though, I still resign as soon I feel the game is lost.

Although i shouldnt complain for obvious reasons... I still want to make a point of exactly how annoying games which drag on for so long when you have already won are when you can only play 6 games at a time! lol

Originally posted by jgvaccaro
I do tend to slow down in games that I find confounding or troublesome (partly because those games seem less fun, and I tend to click first on the games that I'm enjoying)

Most people delay resiging at long as possible because most people don't enjoy losing. It's as simple as that. The male ego (and most chessplayers are males) is especially competitive and is conditioned to be identified with its capacity to "win" (in whatever fashion in life). The competitive fields of life (business, science, politics, etc.) are dominated by men because they are highly competitive fields where identifying oneself as a "winner" is very important. In terms of games/sports, chess is without question one of the most intensely competitive. In a sense, it is a pure ego game (with a strong intellectual element), where loss is accompanied by ego-deflation and victory by ego-expansion. Rare is the strong chess player who doesn't have a healthy male-ego, i.e., rare is the strong chess player who likes losing... 😉

And oh yes, most of my wins at RHP have taken waaaay too long.... LOL. 😀

If I´m losing I definitely slow down. Not because I want to delay the enevitable but because for me it´s just a lot more difficult to play a bad position than a good one.

Originally posted by Chessblind
If I´m losing I definitely slow down. Not because I want to delay the enevitable but because for me it´s just a lot more difficult to play a bad position than a good one.

I mostly never resign. When I have a lost position I play quickly and as try to froce stalemate or a draw. If there is a forced mate though and I have 0% chance I resign. I think I learn more by playing out my lost games than just resign. I have even forced draws sometimes in my games ( not in RHP yet) when I have been as much as a queen down!
Like someone once said, no one ever won by resigning.

I thought the whole point of RHP was playing chess. If everybody resigned when they are materially down, then the end game would go to pot, due to lack of practice.

U just have to reference jvbarra's game, Game 637440 where he was cruising it, and then, because he was a queen up obviously lost concentration and ended up loosing the game. That's why I won't resign unless its blatantly obvious that I'm going to be mated or if I'm playing a really (over 1900) player who more than likely isn't going to make a game changing mistake.

Also, if you're materially down, u are obviously going to have to deal with a lot of pressure, which u may also have to do in a game where u are not materially down. This, imho, is great practice.

Obviously, its every individuals right whether to resign or not, but I don't think that people should be dishing out abuse to people who refuse to resign. Would you do it OTB? If its an obviously lost game, then you won't be spending ages thinking about your moves so it shouldn't take up much of your time achieving the win.

Thts why I only play 3 day time out with 0 time bank games 🙂

Originally posted by Ragnorak
U just have to reference jvbarra's game.