Would you have resigned?

[Event "Blitz:30'"]
[Site "Warren"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "New game"]
[Black "Fritz 8"]
[Result "1-0"]
[PlyCount "73"]
[TimeControl "1800"]

{814MB, DP63148} 1. e4 b6 2. d4 Bb7 3. Bd3 f5 4. d5 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Bg5 Bb4 7.
dxe6 fxe4 8. Bxf6 Qxf6 9. Be2 Bxc3+ 10. bxc3 Qxc3+ 11. Kf1 dxe6 12. Bh5+ g6 13.
Ne2 Qf6 14. Bg4 Rf8 15. Qe1 Nd7 16. Ng3 Nc5 17. Rd1 Bd5 18. Qe3 Rd8 19. Ne2 Bc4
20. Rxd8+ Qxd8 21. g3 Qd1+ 22. Kg2 Qxc2 23. Nf4 Ke7 24. Rc1 Qxa2 25. Qd4 Bd5
26. Nxd5+ Qxd5 27. Qe3 c6 28. Rd1 Nd3 29. Rf1 h5 30. Be2 Ne5 31. Qa3+ Kf6 32.
Qxf8+ Nf7 33. Rd1 Qe5 34. Rd7 a5 35. Qxf7+ (35. Rxf7+ Kg5 36. h4#) 35... Kg5
36. h4+ Kh6 37. Qh7# 1-0


Here is a game I just finished on gameknot. I blundered early on and got down several pawns, but didn't resign.

My opponent made a major blunder(31. ... Kf6??) later and allowed me to mate him.

He wasn't too happy, and seemed to imply that I should have never won this game, because I didn't resign early on when I should have.

Now I do tend to resign if I'm down a late, but even though I was down some pawns, I never felt that threatened. And he wasn't pushing his pawns.

My 31. Qa3 was trying to win the pawn on a7.

So, I just was wondering what anyone else thinks about this. I think its just sour grapes.

And of course, I missed a quicker mate.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark.

I am at work and can't play through the game, but it doesnt really matter what the game was. If you won, what he says is just sour grapes. If position was as easy to win as he claims it was, he should have won it, not lost it. And since he didn't, that's his problem. Even if he had an objectively winning position, it still doesn't matter because he ended up losing. Games like these are good reason why one should NOT resign even in a bad positions, because people can still blunder. It doesn't mean you should keep playing with 2 queens down versus someone rated 1800, but there is nothing wrong with playing a game out in many cases.

The scoresheet says your opponent was Fritz 8. I didn't think it was programmed for sour grapes. :p

I'm not sure what his point is. He wouldn't have lost if he hadn't blundered horribly? Maybe not, but so what? That thought doesn't seem to be of any comfort to him if he's still mad.

If his argument is what I think it is, that you were somehow ethically obligated to resign because there was no reasonable chance of winning, then obviously that's not true if you managed to win it. I've lost lots of games from relaxing too early. It's annoying, but you can't expect your opponent to give it to you. Of course it's nice when they do.

His reaction is clearly just sour grapes. My view is that when you agree to play a game, you've agreed to play until checkmate, repetition, or the 50 move rule kicks in. If it ends earlier than that count yourself lucky.

Of course, if I lost from the position black had between moves 25 and 30 I'd be pissed too.

Virtually every rule book says that you have the right to play on until stalemate or checkmate. No rule book says you are obligated to resign. Resigning is simply a way of ending the loser's suffering more quickly. If you want to suffer it is your choice.

I try to keep this in mind when my opponents play out lost positions. When I sat down to play I agreed that they had the right to play on to mate. If I don't like that, well, that is my problem, not theirs. I used to resent it when people did not resign, and I still do from time to time. But the best thing to do is not to resent it.

If you opponent claimed he had a won, not winning but won, position, then your result refutes that proposition without further ado.

Ed Yetman, III
YetmanBrothers.com

I don't see the fun in stalling a postal game for a year because you want to play on with using the max time.

In normal games I always take my time, enjoy the position, look at my opponent, once they get shamed enough about their position they should resign. Most of them get the message I think....

I think his opponent was trying to make an ethical argument. Problem is it's either not a very good argument, or it's not applicable to this case.

If a guy had two hours on his clock, and used it to drag out an Q+Q+K vs. K ending, you can see how the guy with the Queens might be annoyed in a case like that, even though a player has the right to use his time as he sees fit.

On the other hand, what if someone insisted on playing out such an ending (at a reasonable speed)? A person might be slightly offended at that ("You're suggesting that I can't win this"), but to me, any insult would be more than compensated for by the fun of sitting on the winning side of such a game.

Is it reasonable to suggest that I can't win such a game? Well, I don't think it is, but if I should end up blundering into a stalemante, then it would be really hard for me to make that case right then and there.


I think that what made Malackym's opponent so mad is not that Malackym had suggested that he couldn't win the game, but that he was right!


Speaking of etiquette questions, one thing I used to hear about once in a while, which has never appeared in any rulebook that I know of, is people who left a queen hanging, and then got mad that their opponent hadn't said garde when he attacked it. Apparently they thought this was some kind of obligation. I saw somebody ask about that in an old Larry Evans column in Boys Life. I have no idea where that came from, and neither did Larry.


Yeah, and for the ultimate in chutzpah, I sometimes encounter players who complain to me that I'm not winning fast enough.

When I play a guy who refuses to resign, I sometimes go for the quickest win, but sometimes I'm in the mood to play with my food, and do some kind of artistic ending, like promoting all my pawns, moving everything to the back rank, or sacrificing everything and trying to do the B+N mate. I've done something like that and on rare occasions, had someone actually complain that I wasn't winning fast enough. Somehow, they had no obligation to resign, but I did have an obligation to put them out of their misery. You really can't have it both ways here.


And besides, if that argument is valid, I can complain about any game I lose ever, on the grounds that I had a drawn position on Move 1.

The way I see it is, chess is fun. Why should I end the fun just because I happen to be losing?

A few years ago I played a certain GM online in a tournament. It was only a 1/0 game. He ended up promoting all of his pawns to queens - I generally don't bother resigning in 1/0 since it usually takes the same amount of the time to resign as it does to finish it. He stalemated me with 7 queens and a rook, then reported me to an admin for "showing disrespect".

Are you sure he did, or did he just say he would? Did an admin talk to you about it?

Yes, the admin did talk to me.