I was playing a guest on FICS, and unrated game, anyway, I blundered, so I resigned, and he sends me a chat calling me a quitter. (After inquiring about it, he was mad cause he didn’t get to checkmate me.)
Anyway, I got to thinking, and in my nearly 40 years of playing chess, that’s the first time someone outright said that they felt cheated that they didn’t get to play to checkmate.
I recommended he join the USCF and find out about chess etiquette. I didn’t hang around after that. Didn’t really have the time or inclination (plus I was about to go to work) to educate the person on chess etiquette.
Never the less, I thought it rather fascinating, because that was the first time someone felt cheated they didn’t play to checkmate.
I’ve seen master level annotations where the loser was praised for sportsmanship in allowing a particularly pretty finish to be played on the board, rather than consigning it to the notes by resigning. But, it’s certainly not obligatory to do so.
I have often wondered if there is a consensus on the “right” time to resign. In the first round of Swiss tournaments, I frequently find myself facing someone hundreds of points better than me. I have found myself on turn 8, even in material, but with cramped pieces and a severe deficit in space, reacting to moves and really unable to plan ahead in any meaningful way. By that point,it’s clear that defeat is already certain.
Should I resign? A few moves later, a pawn inevitably falls, or maybe a bishop or a knight. Then? Resign?
I always feel like if I resign, I’m not giving them my best, but if I don’t, I’m wasting their time.
It seems like every few scholastic tournaments I do there is one kid (generally in the K-3 sections and sometimes in the 4th-5th grade section) who wants to refuse to allow an opponent to resign and demands to be able to play to checkmate. So maybe you were playing somebody with that level of emotional developement.
This month’s CL4K has an article about how kids should play on even in lost positions because of the possibility of an error being made. It cites a game where an IM was clearly winning and made one error that allowed a sacrifice resulting in a forced stalemate. With a mid-expert rating I was playing in a US Open (50/150, 20/60 time control with nobody in time pressure) against an IM and the IM blew an endgame tempo allowing me to get a draw (I will admit that I thought all along that I had the draw and it wasn’t until after the game that the IM showed my how busted I really was). There have been CL “What’s the best move” columns with examples of GMs resigning when they really had won positions.
Against lower rated players I’ve drawn or won numerous games from a “hopelessly” lost position (the most recent was two days ago), but people do say that I fight on much longer than most players. At a different US Open I was the higher rated player in a two-pawn-down minor piece ending (nowhere near enough compensation) and I refused my opponents draw offer (I won, but that probably wasn’t the odds on favorite decision).
I remember yet another time I was playing at a US Open in Chicago against as 23xx master on the board next to Jerry Hanken. After analyzing a position for about 10 minutes searching for any life in it I finally resigned. Jerry then let me know that if I had played on he would have written about it in his “Hanken’s Corner” column in the bulletin as an example of how the Chicago area players refused to resign even when that was the honorable thing to do.
As far as advice for you goes, just play as long as you want to play and don’t worry about the perceptions of others.
When to resign?
The material situation is so bad that you have no chance at all to recover.
Your opponent demonstrates he is a good player, and likely to carry out checkmate easily.
When the position has no more tactical tricks.
Stalemate is impossible and you are down to a small army that is being decimated.
When you want to show respect for your opponent’s skill. This also requires a handshake and telling her how well she played.
In scholastic tournaments, stalemate is a frequent guest. As is blunders of Queens and other assorted pieces. Kids play on until one move to checkmate or allow the checkmate. Adults play on in hopeless positions to punish themselves for their poor play. Sometimes they do it to needle an opponent, and resign one move before mate. There is also a child-like “hope chess” that causes people to play on. Have saved more than a few positions from the jaws of defeat, even completely turning the tables. Chess is a lot trickier than people think, especially endgames. Play on if you think there is a chance of simplifying to theoretical drawn positions. Play on if your opponent looks smug and overconfident. Throwing obstacles in his path causes frustration and mistakes. That is what GMs do when they get bad positions.
BTW, if you want to see examples of how to play on, save positions and make the most of what you have, read David LeMoir’s, “How to Be Lucky in Chess.”
Botvinnik’s advise on when to resign was when it was obvious to everyone in the audience why you were doing it. Chess lore has it that he was the only reigning World Champion to be checkmated on the board. Supposedly it was a one-move combination that he missed, possibly in time pressure, but I’ve never seen a citation of the game.
Great story, thanks for sharing it. I never heard the turn of phrase “one-move combination” before. Good to learn some new chess jargon. I wonder if they have one-punch combinations in boxing. If not, this is something that chess, through chess-boxing, can educate pugilists about.
One of Byrne’s chess students related later why he played on: “First of all, you have to remember that in 1956 no one knew that Bobby Fischer was going to become Bobby Fischer! He was just a very promising 13-year-old kid who played a great game against me. When it got to the position where I was lost, I asked some of the other competitors if it might be a nice thing to let the kid mate me, as a kind of tribute to the fine game he played. They said, ‘Sure, why not?’ and so I did.” Tim Krabbé, Open Chess Diary (scroll down to No. 241) (quoting Don Heisman). Anecdote quoted from Wikipedia.
In this case it was a 5 min game of chess, (which I usually do really bad at), but was the only thing I could fit in before heading to work. In any event, I’m glad I talked to the guy, even if was only a few lines of chat.
When to resign? If was playing my normal time of 20+10 or even 15+5, I would’ve gladly played the position out more. From a piece perspective, he gained all of 1 pawn, but from a strategic and tactical point of view, he was the definite advantage, and it was late middle game. Late middle game isn’t the easiest part of the game to even up a position with so little time on the clock.
What’s important is that you give yourself your best. Different players have different “loss horizons.” I have often continued games where it was clear (to my opponent) that I was dead lost. Generally I will resign when this becomes clear to me as well.
Sometimes, I will have an intuition that I am lost but want to see how the position should be won. This is why it is inportant to keep the best score you can so that it will be possible to reconstruct and learn from your losses (and some fluke wins).
I know this is the age of computers and all but I find it useful to hear a little about what my opponent was thinking during the game. Most players who have to play out K+Q v K will not have the energy left to give you their best thoughts.
I could not write a precise description of when there is some positive etiquette to playing the few remaining moves to enable your opponent to bring his well played game to the elegant conclusion of checkmate; but…
I think there are rare times where it seems best to play the few remaining moves so that your opponent gets his checkmate in the official moves.
Byrne-Fischer 1956 is a classic example where playing on was right in multiple ways.
That said - it is never proper to complain about wanting to reach literal checkmate when your opponent resigns in a legitimately lost position.
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Fischer didn’t complain, but he was bitterly disappointed (paraphrasing from memory) when, a few years after the D. Byrne game, R. Byrne resigned to show he’d appreciated the as-yet-undelivered point of the brilliancy. The emotional rush of making such a move is a very human pleasure.
The Bears could have safely resigned in the third quarter.