We’ve all experienced the worst of sportsmanship over the years, or even engaged in it, at the chessboard, in tournament play let’s say. What’s the best sportsmanship you encountered, of even did yourself? I’ll answer my own post later.
My first rated game, as a young 20 something, club championship, playing a middle aged gentleman. I was ahead in a tight end game, and once all of his good move options were gone, he carefully placed his king on its side and politely resigned.
I once reminded my opponent to press his clock, when he had forgotten to do so with under 1 minute remaining.
Why is that so praiseworthy, though? Would I really want to win a game by sitting there with a poker face while my opponent ran out of time when it was my move?
Bill Smythe
I played a young girl (10 or 11), about 3 years ago in stillwater. I was amazed at her ability, she played about 12 moves into the opening without leaving the book. By the end of the game I was wanting her to win more than I wanted to win. And, she did.
She then stood up, very Dignified and Lady like, offered her hand, and stated, “You played a very good game Mr. Payne, Thank you”. I just sit there smiling as she walked away. 
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A higher-rated player, down in material through unwise encounters, offered me a draw when my flag had fallen
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On New Year’s Day, when my opponent hadn’t shown up after an hour, I went to the TD and claimed the victory. A short time later, he did show up and wanted to play. I agreed and I lost.
Some may remember the WBCA . In the fall of 1989 I joined the WBCA . Grandmaster Walter Browne gave me three months free membership. Not exactly sportsmanship but a nice gesture all the same.
I once reached a position in a two hour game where I was up 3 pawns (I had 6 to my opponent’s 3, IIRC) with LOTS of material still on the board, with only about 5 minutes each left. Obviously, my opponent and I were both too slow to play it out accurately in such a short period of time. And with an open center, queens, rooks, and some minor pieces left on the board, there was still plenty of possible tactics waiting for me to blunder into them in time trouble and give up my material advantage. My opponent resigned.
Similarly, this past weekend, I played a long, hard fought game, where my opponent eventually managed to get a tactic to win a rook from me. Queens were still on the board, along with a couple of minor pieces, and my king was relatively safe for now, and my opponent only had 5 minutes left to my 10, in a 2 hour game. I could have played it out, hoping she would time out or blunder in time trouble to give the material back, but I just resigned and congratulated her on a well played game as soon as she got my rook.
I was playing a tough game against an opponent one or two hundred points lower than me. We eventually dwindled down to a drawish endgame (I may have been up a pawn, but I can’t remember). He offered a draw, and I declined (not wanting a draw against a lower rated player), instead choosing an extremely risky path to try to queen. Not only did my plan backfire, but I used up a significant amount of my time remaining, and when all was said and done, I had two minutes left (to his 10 or more) on the losing end of KQP vs. KQPP. While the position was still drawish, we were unfortunately playing without delay, and I probably would have flagged/blundered. As a last-ditch effort, I offered him a draw, and to my surprise, he accepted. When I asked him why, he told me he thought the position was a draw (despite him being up a pawn). I pointed to the clock, and he simply said “who wants to win like that?”
By me:
About ten years ago, entering the last round of local Grand Prix tournament held at a local university, I was leading the non-Open section needing only a draw to clinch 1st-place. I was paired against a college student, who apologized that he was committed to playing on his soccer team, and that he might well be an hour late. He offered to either forfeit or a 1-move draw.
However, I let him (and the TD) know that I would be content to wait for him, and not start his clock:
- The university had provided the playing site for free, on the condition its students were offered free entry;
- He had showed good sportsmanship by not asking for any favors from me;
- Since he played a major collegiate sport himself, I figured it’d be a good life lesson.
He hurried back after the soccer game, about 50 minutes after the round’s starting time. He ended up winning the game, as I was unable to equalize with the Black pieces, and I settled for a tie for 2nd-place.
To me:
Playing at one out-of-state site for the first time, I got lost trying to drive to the hotel, and was about 12 minutes late for a round. That proved costly, as paired against a lower-rated lad of about 10 or 11 years old, I won a pawn but the opposite-colored bishops middlegame was difficult to win: The queens and rooks were still on the board, while his king was secure – there was no straightforward quick way to win – and I was well under ten minutes left. He offered a draw, which I declined – and soon dropped a piece to a fork. Unlike most youngsters that age, he was extremely humble after my resignation – noting that I was clearly better until my time-pressure blunder, and that without my late start the result would’ve been different.
I said yes, but he’d played terrific defense after losing a pawn, and he deserved to win.
He ended up winning the tournament’s “Upset” cash prize.
A couple of examples in this thread go beyond the call of duty – too far beyond.
Suppose a player has a complicated position where there are winning chances, losing chances, and drawing chances, but the opponent is short of time. Offering a draw just because of the opponent’s time trouble cuts a potentially beautiful game of chess down in its prime. That’s what the delay / increment is for – to eliminate at least the worst examples of a premature finish.
In a game being played without a delay or increment, a player who wants to be a good sport but who has slight winning chances, and whose opponent is in time trouble, is faced with a moral dilemma. If he offers a draw, he is depriving himself of a well-deserved chance to win. If he does not, he may be depriving the opponent of a reasonable chance to draw. With a delay or increment, this dilemma disappears – it says let’s play on and see what happens. Each player is given a fair opportunity to prove the winning or drawing chances, as the case may be.
Bill Smythe
I disagree. You’re incorrectly assuming that we can all play a reasonable game of chess at blitz speeds.
Personally, if I’m up a minor piece in a middle game position, with 5 minutes left on my clock and a 5 second delay, I can safely resign. With that little time left, and not being in the endgame yet, there’s about a 95% chance that I’ll make at least 3 or 4 game losing blunders before we get to the endgame.
Once we get down to one piece and some pawns each, there’s less on the board to keep track of, so I can play quickly without necessarily blundering. I’ve actually gotten pretty good at playing endgames in time trouble, out of necessity. I’ll even say that I’ve gotten good at milking that delay in endgames to make sure I don’t lose on time in a winning or drawn position.
But if we’ve still got 3+ pieces each, especially with queens on the board, and I’m down to 5 minutes or less, just forget it. I’ll play on, but if we don’t trade to an endgame quickly, I’m guaranteed a loss. This is why I prefer FIDE’s 30 second increment to a 5 second delay.
I agree completely and wonder who ever determinrd that 5 seconds was the appropriate delay/increment?
Agree on the 30-second increment.
But I was so struck by your thought that I looked up your rating & said to myself, “Gee, Fromper is pretty strong…I’m surprised this is such an issue for him.” I understand that you might boot the occasional piece-up game in time pressure. But for an almost-A player to expect to boot the game with 5 minutes plus 5 seconds is an extreme case, I think.
I’m 52, and trust me, I’m well aware that the young players’ neurons fire much more frequently than mine. But playing a lot of blitz games (and I too am a terrible blitz player–so too when I was young) does somehow seem to transfer to handling time pressure in tournament play.
Yeah, I just suck at blitz. My ICC blitz rating is about 600 points lower than my slow rating there. And that’s based on a lot more games than my USCF quick rating, so I consider that blitz rating to be more accurate. I have been trying to play more blitz lately, to get better at dealing with time trouble, but I still have a hard time with it.
–Fromper
I’m more with Bill Symthe here, good sportsmanship involves good losing as well as good winning. All parties entering a tournament know the time control and delay, those that can effectively use their time win OTB, the days of sitting over a position for hours in between moves are long gone, thankfully I play and enjoy correspondence chess as well and think a few of the examples herein would be better suited in that context, resigning when you know you are lost is the exactly why you can resign, however if your opponent has only five seconds left, you are probably not lost. Those are the rules as they stand today, and perhaps they should be changed, it could merit discussion that if one had a forced mate and could demonstrate it after you flag fell then perhaps the game should be ruled in your favor, or perhaps not. I think the example of waiting for the opponent, when given notice beforehand that they would be late for a particular round, is perfect. It demonstrates fairness and respectfulness.
There is one caveat to that. If you wait 50 minutes (as an example) before starting the clock then the TD may require that you take 25 minutes off of each clock, as otherwise it may affect the schedule and negatively impact every other player. This would be similar to a 16M (and possibly 16K1) situation where a clock was not placed on a game until after the start of the round. If the mentioned event happened back when there were multiple time controls, no SD, and adjournments, then the clock might not have needed the time-deduction adjustment.
In his example, Mr. Takagi said that it was the last round game, thus the only one inconvenienced would be the TD, and the site staff. Having said that, it’s completely reasonable for the TD to split the time, and should have been notified that the player was waiting for his opponent to come late so he could decide.
Alex Relyea
He also said that winning or drawing the game would give him clear first, so everybody waiting for prize checks might have also been inconvenienced.
Here’s my own story of good sportsmanship, which i thought at first was bad sportsmanship:
I was paired in round 1 of a local tourney with a grandmaster. After almost each of his moves, he got up and vanished. I thought that was poor taste, to say the least. As if he was saying to me “I can beat you without staying much at the board”.
I of course lost, and was a little upset. When he shook my hand, he said to me “I am so-so sorry that I kept walking away from the board. The real TD didn’t make it, and the guy running the tournament instead had absolutely no idea what to do, so I had to help him”. Then he sat with me and said (and demonstrated) that in a couple of places, had I played a better move, I would have made him regret getting up from the board! And he was so gracious in complimenting my play, even though I didn’t think I had my best game.
One of my own sportsmanship moves was, it was the last round of a tournament. My opponent asked me to agree to a draw. He said he really had to catch a flight out, he had an emergency at home. He admitted that if I didn’t agree to the draw, he would resign immediately. I took the draw.
My funniest sportsmanship story involves my dad. I posted this awhile back, but here it is again. My dad came up to meet me for lunch between games of the NY Open back in the 80’s. The game was very long, so he showed up before it was over. When it was over, my dad put his hand on my opponent’s shoulder and said, “pal, that was a heck of a game you played”. When the guy walked away, my father said to me in a low voice “Bruce, who won?” See, my dad had NO idea how to play chess!!! (The game was a draw)
I had a similar situation where I was trying to catch a train back to New York. If I didn’t leave by a certain time I would miss that train, and the next one didn’t get to New York until 3:00 am. I offered my opponent a draw in a position where material was even, but I was possibly a little worse. He declined the draw, and I ended out resigning.
Many years later I would be on the other side of that scenario. Last round of the US Open in Chicago. My teenage opponent had taken his watch off and had it sitting next to him. After about 1.5 hours of play he kept looking at it. We would play a few more moves, and he’d look at it again. It was clear he had a plane to catch. He offers me a draw in position with even material, and he’s slightly better. I accept the draw. He thanks me very much. His parents come over, and they leave immediately.
To avoid that ever happening to me again, I stay an extra night, or take a red eye flight back.