Why Don't They Resign?

Often I see playes here on this site, and in live games (New York parks, Greenwich Village clubs...) play to the bitter end, even where they have no chance to draw let alone win. I consider this an unsportsman like behavior.

What do you think?

Originally posted by dubnikova
Often I see playes here on this site, and in live games (New York parks, Greenwich Village clubs...) play to the bitter end, even where they have no chance to draw let alone win. I consider this an unsportsman like behavior.

What do you think?

In most of cases, yes.

This subject has often cropped up here.

The general feeling is it's pretty bad form from an experienced player.

But you cannot force your opponent to resign.
The rules state the game ends on checkmate so some players simply play to the rules.

Bottom line is that the choice is theirs, maybe they see the possibility of a stalemate, timeout etc

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Game in progress, so I can't comment on the game. But if I were in your shoes, and considering the players' ratings, I wouldn't put mccarthyball on ignore for just that one game.

Then you get those players, that would send silly little messages telling you to resign, during a game. That in itself is poor behaviour. And not only that, send silly icon messages...showing how annoyed they are cos you're not moving in their games.

Its annoying and shows immaturity!

Also take into account that there are players that wish to protect their ratings, so resigning/losing at a later point might affect their ratings differently - especially with concurrent games. Not that I agree with playing to keep your rating as high as possible either :-/

there was this funny long thread about two guys playing for 200 moves or something like that. they were quite worked up about the injustice of it all.

I think the other guy accidentally walked into a mate or a stalemate eventually.



stuff happens. if you can't prove your win, or force the draw, there's usually not much to complain about. it's correspondence chess, the games will last for a long time. suck it up.

You win a game by checkmating. You should never tell your opponent to resign, and should never expect it of them. If you are not willing to find a checkmate, then you shouldn't win.

Generally speaking, I don't resign until all of my pieces have gone (and even then, would not resign against king and two bishops, or bishop and knight) because I can still fight before that, and after that it's better just to save bother players a little bit of time.

the final chance for a loosing site - is a stalemate). Beside of it, sometimes a winning side makes an error that changes the position to the opposite.

I wouldn't resign against anyone except a computer against a bishop and knight. I've heard that even grandmasters mess that one up.

I have an opponent who is facing an inevitable checkmate in one. Well, he could postpone it for one move by making a meaningless check, but he will be checkmated on the next move. So he hasn't moved in 10 days even though he has been making daily moves in other games. Yes, it is very unsportsman-like, and I consider it to be a deliberate insult. The skull is due to appear in 5 minutes and my finger is itchy to click it.

Originally posted by amolv06
I wouldn't resign against anyone except a computer against a bishop and knight. I've heard that even grandmasters mess that one up.

And even some computers can't do it!

An interesting article that is somewhat related to this - a suggestion that a rule should be introduced that games must be played out to the bitter end: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5057

And replies to this (plus a funny anecdote): http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5060