The British itself!

[Jonathan Bryant]

sure, and there are other miracle saves too. but a number of the games he has lost seemed to lack even the possibility of a miracle.

Indeed (http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... enant.html)

but that’s the thing about chasing lost causes isn’t it. You do it enough and sooner or later a miracle turns up. To get the miracle every few years you have to play out lost endings when people are asking 'why on earth is he playing on?'


At Penarth a few years ago an opponent resigned in a drawn king and pawn ending against me in round 1. The next day I resigned in a worse but not lost rook and pawn ending against a Grandmaster.

So a few days later I resigned late just to make sure I really was losing. Admittedly "late" on that day was still move only12, but at least three moves too late it certainly was.

[Jonathan Bryant]

The ultimate 'Non-Resigning at The British Championship' game... from 1971

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1387837

Wonder if someone was egging the loser on....? And did it get the winner in a flap?

Hmm. Resource Limit Reached on the British Championship site, so while I’m waiting to look at the final scores ...


Anybody interested in the loser of that game

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... -holt.html
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... -eric.html

[Paul Dargan]

Any news of the mysteriously foretold Penguin appearance in Wales ... or was this just a ruse?

Paul Dargan

[Jonathan Bryant]

[
Impressive performance by Haria, though perhaps not the toughest line-up of opponents - he did face eight players graded lower than him for a TPR of 2295. For comparison, Daniel Fernandez, finishing half a point further back on on 7, has a TPR of 2507 and played all of the top five seeds plus two other GMs.

Another comparison, Haria’s opposition included 1 GM, 1 IM and 1 FM. His final score was 7.5
Chris Ward’s opposition included 4 GMs, 3 IMs and 1 FM. His final score was 6.5


Obviously this is not Haria’s fault. You can only play whoever’s sitting in front of you. It’s just what happens with the Swiss system with the kind of fields that the British attracts these days.

The pity is that he didn’t get the opportunity to be tested against a few more titled players.

[MartinCarpenter]

This does all show the modest problem with deciding the British womens title in the main championship - namely that the nature of Swiss events means it'll often be fairly random who wins. Probably no hugely better alternative though.

Wonder if there's any propsect of anyone organising a 'playoff' match for the main event at some later stage in the year?! It'd need a bit of money of course so I suppose unlikely. Might be good experience for Hawkins.

[Simon Brown]

If it's OK for Simon Williams to play on two pawns down why wasn't it OK for Oskar Hackner to play on one pawn down ?

Edit: I suppose the clock times are relevant in Williams vs Haria.

Sorry all, had a meeting and missed all the fun.

Williams should have resigned earlier than he did, but there may be have an element of testing out the junior - when it became clear that Haria knew what to do, he should have resigned. I don't think time was relevant.

in addition, these R+2 endings can be tricky, but R+1 with K cut off by a mile isn't.

[Geoff Chandler]

Nothing yet in the rule book states when a player should resign.
It's the loser's consulation - he gets to pick at what moment the game ends.
Often the last few moves are momentum as the next time control is reached.

Looking at an FM title (which to me means they aint yet good enough to get an IM title)
and saying one should tip their King the minute is looks lost is ridiculous.

Playing on in a so called totally lost position is not bad manners.
You could say it's bad manners if some kibitzer pops up and starts
suggesting that a player should resign.

These people really want to take a good look at themselves and wonder
who on this God's earth do they think they are. Swanning about the place
declaring when games should be finished like some gifted all-seeing arbiter.

Rip their moves to shreds, poke fun at their haricut...but never ever tell a player when to resign.

And we all know there is no such thing as a 'totally lost position'.
How many swindles in so called resignable positions do you want me to post.
(Jonathan B. just posted one.)

Not counting the games where a player has resigned in a won position.
I've had it twice happen against me in serious OTB play.
What was I meant do refuse the resignation?
(Actually I did in one case v Alun Murphy - I said 'let's just call it a draw.)

I've also had an opponent resign against me when he was winning in a
correspondence game (using the old snail mail)!

The player will resign when they are ready to resign and should not be
prompted or bullied into doing so by looks of shock and horror.

Play the whistle.

[Simon Brown]

You are entitled to your opinion Geoff, just as I am to mine. And to illustrate, I had a game where my opponent wrote Resigns on his scoresheet (as I queened a pawn on move 20 or so), played a few moves and then realised that it wasn't quite so easy to play with two queens on a full board. He played on and I lost. But that was an exceptional case.

I see the FM title as an indicator of someone who had enough sense at the right time to realise that they ought to find another way to make a living, and thereafter treated chess as fun. And before you ask, yes I am.

[Eric Gardiner]

If it's OK for Simon Williams to play on two pawns down why wasn't it OK for Oskar Hackner to play on one pawn down ?

Edit: I suppose the clock times are relevant in Williams vs Haria.

Sorry all, had a meeting and missed all the fun.

Williams should have resigned earlier than he did, but there may be have an element of testing out the junior - when it became clear that Haria knew what to do, he should have resigned. I don't think time was relevant.

in addition, these R+2 endings can be tricky, but R+1 with K cut off by a mile isn't.

Thanks for your reply Simon - I see Nick Ivell has given a slightly different although not contradictory opinion upthread. At my level, I don't recall having problems winning R+2p vs R with either disconnected or connected pawns (I've not been tested with R+ f & h pawn yet!) but I should probably look at the endgame more closely. Certainly I'd assume that a 215 grade player regardless of age wouldn't have any problems winning with R+ a+ e pawn vs R. I agree the king was cut off by a long distance in Hackner vs Lewis.

It could be argued (I'm not saying I would!) that players in the Championship should play on for a while in lost technical endgames on the basis that their games are going to be studied by weaker players This would be essentially the same argument as the argument that grandmasters shouldn't resign in positions where amateurs don't understand why they're resigning.

[JustinHorton]

If people consistently resigned much later than they do, there would be fewer people playing chess, since more of the people who play would get hacked off at late resigners.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Certainly I'd assume that a 215 grade player regardless of age wouldn't have any problems winning with R+ a+ e pawn vs R.

How about grandmasters (former world chess championship challengers, no less) with R + e + g vs R?

http://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id= ... 5424.28277

[Matt Mackenzie]

This does all show the modest problem with deciding the British womens title in the main championship - namely that the nature of Swiss events means it'll often be fairly random who wins. Probably no hugely better alternative though.

Wonder if there's any propsect of anyone organising a 'playoff' match for the main event at some later stage in the year?! It'd need a bit of money of course so I suppose unlikely. Might be good experience for Hawkins.

Part of me would like to see that, but Howell would obviously start as big favourite there.

And I am delighted to see Hawkins win a title, even if it would have been better for him to do so outright

[Barry Sandercock]

No one ever won a game by resigning ( Saviely Tartakower )

[Eric Gardiner]

Certainly I'd assume that a 215 grade player regardless of age wouldn't have any problems winning with R+ a+ e pawn vs R.

How about grandmasters (former world chess championship challengers, no less) with R + e + g vs R?

http://chess-db.com/public/game.jsp?id= ... 5424.28277

Hmm ... interesting. Being lazy and playing it through with the Nalimov tablebases I see that White's error occurred when it got down to R+P vs R. In my games with disconnected pawns, they've always been further apart - perhaps when they are only separated by one file the win is generally more difficult?

[Nick Ivell]

Talking about the etiquette of resigning reminds me of one of my finest moments, my win against McNab in the 1985 Varsity match. We reached an ending where I had bishop and 4 pawns v rook - an easy win. I proceeded to make hard work of it in the allegro. And then he resigned! He resigned based on a neat tactic he had seen. With my brain frazzled in the allegro, I had missed the tactic. He demonstrated it to me after the game.

Moral of the story? Never resign having done the opponent's calculation for him.