the gentleman who first taught me chess told me never to resign at the level im playing at.
I have made a friend who is an EXTREMELY strong Fide Master and he rightly ordered me to resign when I went a piece down against him.
I think this is the first time I have resigned a serious game a piece down and I was wondering when does everyone else resign OTB and IRL?
When do you resign?
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: When do you resign?
When the game is completely hopeless. The only exception is positions you might continue in Blitz, Rapidplay or Standard play without increments where there was a possibility that your opponent's time might expire.Joshua Gibbs wrote: I think this is the first time I have resigned a serious game a piece down and I was wondering when does everyone else resign OTB and IRL?
You should be able to tell by your opponent's moves that everything is totally under control.
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MJMcCready
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Re: When do you resign?
Depends mostly on how many games I have that day and if I can see how to generate counter play.
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Joshua Gibbs
Re: When do you resign?
The gentleman who taught me who has been ECF 215 told me not to resign unless i was playing a 160 because stalemate could always happen. I agree with his advice.Roger de Coverly wrote:
When the game is completely hopeless.
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Michael Flatt
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Re: When do you resign?
Stalemates don't just happen. You have to actively engineer them.Joshua Gibbs wrote: The gentleman who taught me who has been ECF 215 told me not to resign unless i was playing a 160 because stalemate could always happen. I agree with his advice.
As a player should take responsibility for your own game and decide for yourself what result you are playing for.
Advice is cheap - you can accept or reject it as you feel fit.
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: When do you resign?
That's certainly true. I played a game once where this was move 6MJMcCready wrote:Depends mostly on how many games I have that day and if I can see how to generate counter play.
but this was move 17
The whole game
Had this been an afternoon or evening game rather than a Sunday morning, I might have given up at move 8, or even move 12 at which point I'm better, according to engines.
My excuse for the blunder is that the main line at the time included .. h6 and Bh4 when the Bxb1 trick doesn't work.
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Gary Kenworthy
Re: When do you resign?
I have seen a former very BCF Open champion in the 4NCL make almost the same blunder in the Tromp. A Sunday morning and folks clearly not awake.(time of day)
The game continued, both sides blundered again - that finally decided the game !
One IM in two different IM tournaments was stalemated in K + Q v K and also K + Q + P v K (his opponent touched the pawn, which if it had moved would have caused a stalemate, to the only permissible exit square)... The defender, well much later he went on to become GM. (Norms were at stake)
Yes, time can be factor as well. The 1988 Counties Open Championship was decided by a loss on time, before the lone king was was just about to be mated. (The County Title was also at stake). The side 5 -9 down ... won
There are many examples- Personal judgement -- rgds GK
The game continued, both sides blundered again - that finally decided the game !
One IM in two different IM tournaments was stalemated in K + Q v K and also K + Q + P v K (his opponent touched the pawn, which if it had moved would have caused a stalemate, to the only permissible exit square)... The defender, well much later he went on to become GM. (Norms were at stake)
Yes, time can be factor as well. The 1988 Counties Open Championship was decided by a loss on time, before the lone king was was just about to be mated. (The County Title was also at stake). The side 5 -9 down ... won
There are many examples- Personal judgement -- rgds GK
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Ian Thompson
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Re: When do you resign?
Do you not know that you can go back and edit your previous posts to correct typos, or anything else you have second thoughts about?Gary Kenworthy wrote:former very strong
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Nick Grey
- Posts: 1838
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Re: When do you resign?
Joshua it is contextual.
30 years ago 45 minutes into a 3 hour time control match I dropped a piece on top of my Benko Gambit pawn.
At the time control I had a winning material advantage. My opponent said if I was a gentleman I ought to have resigned earlier. I said yes but I do not like drinking alone & was waiting for team mates & offered him a pint to cheer him up. We used to drink at a place called Dirty Dicks.
Last season in a match with a 2 and a half hour session quickplay finish I dropped a piece in a rather unsound bishop x h7 sacrifice when everyone knew was not going to work (even me) yet I played it. I then followed up with another piece sacrifice for a few pawns. At the time control I had a completely drawn position. However my team mates also managed to change winning positions to draws and draws to losses. We lost the match.
Against very much stronger players take a leaf out of Chess for Tigers (Simon Webb) on trapping heffalumps! If you complicate the position so much that you cannot understand it then they may not either. Throw pawns at them, pieces too & play for mate. There is no point in being gradually out played other than to learn from it and not make the same mistakes again.
We have also witnessed players in 4NCL not resigning in an obviously lost queen, knight and pawns against queen and pawns ending some 6 hours into a game. Then one player blunders a knight and takes another 45 munites before agreeing a draw. Blunders happen to the best players, just not as frequently as next best players, & at our level I should imagine OTB at a slowplay level you will find that we are making at least 5-10% games where we have the wrong result from an earlier position.
30 years ago 45 minutes into a 3 hour time control match I dropped a piece on top of my Benko Gambit pawn.
At the time control I had a winning material advantage. My opponent said if I was a gentleman I ought to have resigned earlier. I said yes but I do not like drinking alone & was waiting for team mates & offered him a pint to cheer him up. We used to drink at a place called Dirty Dicks.
Last season in a match with a 2 and a half hour session quickplay finish I dropped a piece in a rather unsound bishop x h7 sacrifice when everyone knew was not going to work (even me) yet I played it. I then followed up with another piece sacrifice for a few pawns. At the time control I had a completely drawn position. However my team mates also managed to change winning positions to draws and draws to losses. We lost the match.
Against very much stronger players take a leaf out of Chess for Tigers (Simon Webb) on trapping heffalumps! If you complicate the position so much that you cannot understand it then they may not either. Throw pawns at them, pieces too & play for mate. There is no point in being gradually out played other than to learn from it and not make the same mistakes again.
We have also witnessed players in 4NCL not resigning in an obviously lost queen, knight and pawns against queen and pawns ending some 6 hours into a game. Then one player blunders a knight and takes another 45 munites before agreeing a draw. Blunders happen to the best players, just not as frequently as next best players, & at our level I should imagine OTB at a slowplay level you will find that we are making at least 5-10% games where we have the wrong result from an earlier position.
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Brian Towers
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Re: When do you resign?
The time to resign is when you know you're going to lose. For different players of different standards that moment will obviously vary. How many moves you play on after you are completely lost probably matters less than how slowly you make those moves. 10 extra moves rattled off in 5 minutes is forgivable. 5 moves dragged out over an hour isn't.
Let me give some examples from the tournament I played in last weekend.
I saw one player I know (~170+) play on with bare king against king, knight and pawn, until he was checkmated by his stronger opponent. In his next game he again played on very slowly in a completely lost position against a stronger player with no extenuating circumstances. When I started watching he was one pawn down in a hopeless double rook and pawns endgame. A reasonable moment to resign.
There was only one move which gave any hope of simplifying down into a RP v RPP endgame in which he could put up a fight but correct play by his opponent would retain his 2 pawn lead. Rh7+ followed by Rxh4 hoping for KxR when Rh7+ drives the king away and lets him recapture the rook. He took an absolute age to play Rh7+. I then watched him think for several minutes without playing the follow up Rxh4, lost patience and moved on to watch other games. When I came back a few minutes later he had finally made the move but his opponent played the zwischenzug Rxf3+ before capturing the rook on h4. He again missed a good moment to resign as he was either going to bury his rook on a3 or face 2 extra connected passed pawns supported by the king.
I spoke to his opponent, who was my next round opponent, after the game. He wasn't amused. Then I had to play him and I have to admit I knew I was completely lost round about move 15, however I played on before resigning on move 21. My excuse was that wins in under 20 moves count as miniatures and I didn't want to feature on the wrong side of a miniature. My opponent didn't hold my extra 6 moves, played fairly quickly, against me.
In my one win I outplayed my slightly higher rated opponent in the opening, won a pawn and swapped down into an endgame where I also had much more active pieces. Another pawn followed and we exchanged down into a RPP v R ending with the pawns separated by several files. He resigned only when it was obvious that I was going to queen a pawn in the next 2 or 3 moves. Reasonable enough, I think at my level. I don't know the theory behind such positions so "I just wanted to see how it is done" would have been a perfectly good excuse for my opponent to play on in a clearly losing position.
In the Minor a clubmate from the Indian subcontinent was playing one of the few remaining members of the BNP. My clubmate was a piece or two up. More material was mopped up and eventually he checkmated his opponent. "You know you missed several earlier mates?" I asked him. "Could be" he smiled back. For some reason the image flashed up into my mind of a cat playing for several minutes with a half dead mouse before eating it. I didn't ask him if he thought his opponent should have resigned earlier.
Let me give some examples from the tournament I played in last weekend.
I saw one player I know (~170+) play on with bare king against king, knight and pawn, until he was checkmated by his stronger opponent. In his next game he again played on very slowly in a completely lost position against a stronger player with no extenuating circumstances. When I started watching he was one pawn down in a hopeless double rook and pawns endgame. A reasonable moment to resign.
There was only one move which gave any hope of simplifying down into a RP v RPP endgame in which he could put up a fight but correct play by his opponent would retain his 2 pawn lead. Rh7+ followed by Rxh4 hoping for KxR when Rh7+ drives the king away and lets him recapture the rook. He took an absolute age to play Rh7+. I then watched him think for several minutes without playing the follow up Rxh4, lost patience and moved on to watch other games. When I came back a few minutes later he had finally made the move but his opponent played the zwischenzug Rxf3+ before capturing the rook on h4. He again missed a good moment to resign as he was either going to bury his rook on a3 or face 2 extra connected passed pawns supported by the king.
I spoke to his opponent, who was my next round opponent, after the game. He wasn't amused. Then I had to play him and I have to admit I knew I was completely lost round about move 15, however I played on before resigning on move 21. My excuse was that wins in under 20 moves count as miniatures and I didn't want to feature on the wrong side of a miniature. My opponent didn't hold my extra 6 moves, played fairly quickly, against me.
In my one win I outplayed my slightly higher rated opponent in the opening, won a pawn and swapped down into an endgame where I also had much more active pieces. Another pawn followed and we exchanged down into a RPP v R ending with the pawns separated by several files. He resigned only when it was obvious that I was going to queen a pawn in the next 2 or 3 moves. Reasonable enough, I think at my level. I don't know the theory behind such positions so "I just wanted to see how it is done" would have been a perfectly good excuse for my opponent to play on in a clearly losing position.
In the Minor a clubmate from the Indian subcontinent was playing one of the few remaining members of the BNP. My clubmate was a piece or two up. More material was mopped up and eventually he checkmated his opponent. "You know you missed several earlier mates?" I asked him. "Could be" he smiled back. For some reason the image flashed up into my mind of a cat playing for several minutes with a half dead mouse before eating it. I didn't ask him if he thought his opponent should have resigned earlier.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: When do you resign?
If people won't resign, you can try to make their defeat as humiliating as possible. One approach is to create a virtual Zugswang, so they have no moves. Another method is to trade a material advantage for a totally winning ending. Your technique or knowledge has to be up to the challenge, but it's a practical solution if somewhat short of time.Brian Towers wrote:For some reason the image flashed up into my mind of a cat playing for several minutes with a half dead mouse before eating it.
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Clive Blackburn
Re: When do you resign?
I remember watching the finish of a game in a Minor tournament, about 20 years ago. White was winning easily (2 extra pieces and several extra pawns) but black would not resign.
White had a pawn on the 7th rank, which he could have promoted at any time but he decided to make his opponent suffer by moving all of his remaining pawns up to the 6th/7th ranks and then promoting them to queens (mostly with check). He ended up with 4 queens on the board against black's K+2P and a small crowd of spectators gathered around the board. White deliberately avoided checkmate several times, preferring to construct an elaborate mating net and he was clearly reveling in his totally dominant position.
Black had pushed both of his pawns until they were blocked and he was clearly hoping against hope for a stalemate. The finish of the game was comical, white made a queen move, further restricting the movement of the black king, then black held out his hand. White shook it, thinking that black was finally resigning and black said quietly "It's stalemate isn't it".
There was much laughter and white reluctantly signed the result slip then left the tournament hall in a huff. So in that instance, black was correct to play on. White had just persuaded himself that he was going to win whatever happened and he wasn't bothering to think anymore.
White had a pawn on the 7th rank, which he could have promoted at any time but he decided to make his opponent suffer by moving all of his remaining pawns up to the 6th/7th ranks and then promoting them to queens (mostly with check). He ended up with 4 queens on the board against black's K+2P and a small crowd of spectators gathered around the board. White deliberately avoided checkmate several times, preferring to construct an elaborate mating net and he was clearly reveling in his totally dominant position.
Black had pushed both of his pawns until they were blocked and he was clearly hoping against hope for a stalemate. The finish of the game was comical, white made a queen move, further restricting the movement of the black king, then black held out his hand. White shook it, thinking that black was finally resigning and black said quietly "It's stalemate isn't it".
There was much laughter and white reluctantly signed the result slip then left the tournament hall in a huff. So in that instance, black was correct to play on. White had just persuaded himself that he was going to win whatever happened and he wasn't bothering to think anymore.
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Peter Shaw
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Re: When do you resign?
I saw a game in a minor tournament in few years back where white had bare king against a lot of material. Black stalemated white, but neither played realised. White moved the king into check, black made a move, white moved out of check and the game just carried on.
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Gary Kenworthy
Re: When do you resign?
I was the captain of a cup match. Round 1, defending champions against a team 40 + points below ours.
We had a disaster. It was down to the last game. We were better, but with mutual blunders the potential result was swaying to and fro with flags hanging. Our opponent seeing his flag about to fall, a few pawns down in an R +P, picked up a rook, waved it around, dropped in on a square on the board. With the same hand he shook hands to say he resigned, said resigned and said well played. Our player pointed out his flag was down.
Not so, I said, where he dropped his rook - it delivered mate.
But he resigned, and his flag fell debate ensued. I pointed out Euwe's final ruling on Mabbs v Rumens. The clock is an artifical device, mate stops the game. Being on a high board, we lost the board count and went out of the competition.
I have seen a Kent team win a County finals and National Club rapidplay match which ended nearly that way, with a planned forlorn check. Then the flag fell.
Later Barbican won the final of the National Club in Birmingham with a stalemate and a tie break against that same team, in a R and P ending. Our player had a few seconds only on the countdown clock.
I have seen a Q and P ending in a blitz tournament, where the winning side trying to escape checks, walked into a tunnel mate - a lone unprotected queen delivering mate... many many examples.
We had a disaster. It was down to the last game. We were better, but with mutual blunders the potential result was swaying to and fro with flags hanging. Our opponent seeing his flag about to fall, a few pawns down in an R +P, picked up a rook, waved it around, dropped in on a square on the board. With the same hand he shook hands to say he resigned, said resigned and said well played. Our player pointed out his flag was down.
Not so, I said, where he dropped his rook - it delivered mate.
But he resigned, and his flag fell debate ensued. I pointed out Euwe's final ruling on Mabbs v Rumens. The clock is an artifical device, mate stops the game. Being on a high board, we lost the board count and went out of the competition.
I have seen a Kent team win a County finals and National Club rapidplay match which ended nearly that way, with a planned forlorn check. Then the flag fell.
Later Barbican won the final of the National Club in Birmingham with a stalemate and a tie break against that same team, in a R and P ending. Our player had a few seconds only on the countdown clock.
I have seen a Q and P ending in a blitz tournament, where the winning side trying to escape checks, walked into a tunnel mate - a lone unprotected queen delivering mate... many many examples.