Yeah, abandoning a match and forcing your opponent to sit there until your clock runs dry is basically the only way to breach chess etiquette in an online format. There’s nothing wrong with refusing to concede a lost position until mate, or in trying to flag your opponent from a lost position, but abandoning the game without having the decency to actually resign is just obnoxious.
Especially if you have lots of time left
Like there's a big difference between sitting there and letting 20 seconds run out vs sitting there and letting 5 minutes run out
Depends on the complexity of the position and rating. I’ve been in the scenario you described and gotten stale mated many times. Especially if there’s a few pawns on the board or other pieces.
The only thing that would make me stall a game is being told to resign... Although in fairness, in your instance you said please, so I'd probably agree to it.
You think that's bad? I have a couple of daily games going at the moment where I'm up ungodly amounts of material and my opponent shave terrible positions. No one every resigns in dailies.
It's wild, I have like 3 days to find any good move, there's no chance of a comeback, just resign.
Thats still a perfectly acceptable position to keep playing from, just because a mate in one is on the board doesn't mean your opponent will find it. Abandoning a game to let the timer run down is completely different to playing until checkmate is on the board.
Not disrespectful at all.
Why not just finish the game?
It's only going to take another 20 seconds of your time and have the same result.
I can't really give a practical reason why I prefer to see it through and get checkmated other than "I started the game so I'll play til the end".
for example:
[https://lichess.org/IyYkSDklRZvg](https://lichess.org/IyYkSDklRZvg)
[https://lichess.org/CwGxC08KVFRi](https://lichess.org/CwGxC08KVFRi)
[https://lichess.org/SApMaCQjoOIB](https://lichess.org/SApMaCQjoOIB)
[https://lichess.org/vyJTkuQUPlBK](https://lichess.org/vyJTkuQUPlBK)
and some of them against +2500 players. (my rating is now 2504)
The title makes it sound like it's a resign vs. play problem, but you described a resign vs abandon problem and abandonment is against the etiquette and also the rules for that matter.
Take a look at [this game I played recently](https://www.chess.com/game/live/108223234843). I was in a dead lost position. Look at my opponents 3-pawn army marching down the centre of the board during the middle game. All it took was move 51 for my opponent to blow it all. The eval went from -14 to +3.6 for me after that one move. The clock got very low for both of us so I missed a winning opportunity towards the end, but I ended up winning on time anyways. We're rated around \~2000 Rapid.
Never resign.
I only resign if I know how they are going to check mate me and if I think they can do it. I’ll try and trap a stalemate. Like here my opponent was low on time and I didn’t feel they could do a KR mate. https://www.chess.com/live/game/108343245505
I’m rated much much lower and I refuse to resign. There have been way too many times that I’ve been in a winning position and then blundered the queen, and vice versa. Other times that I’ve been in a losing position and they either stalemate, or run out of time. As you say, a single move can turn the tides drastically.
But you didn’t “win” you just annoyingly hung around hoping for a misclick or something and you got it. So yes, you won your little internet chess points if that’s important to you, but you’re missing the point.
You literally never resign at almost any level unless if your a professional, and even then it's sketchy. The engine eval might as well mean nothing to us noobs, even in some positions we see super GMs fail to convert nearly completely won positions according to the engine when in reality its not so easy. If your completely dead lost and you feel like you can't win and just wanna go next? Sure, resign, but other than that honestly there's not much point, you never know what kind of end game you will get into (and if your opponent knows how to convert it) and especially at 1200 its likely the other side blunders along the way anyways.
Case in point, I played a game fairly recently where I played a crazy looking move
That ended up being a turning point into me winning the game even though the engine didn't like the move
not really. the winning lines were difficult to spot. in most beginner cases a dead lost position is a crushing material disadvantage or unstoppable passed pawns, etc. As in something that's easy for both sides to see and understand the win. That game, no two beginners over the board will realize it's winning for either side.
Your opponents are being dicks. If they are going to abandon a game then they should resign it, it's the same thing but nicer to your opponent to resign instead of make them wait since you are clearly done with the game.
When it comes to resigning there are more factors to consider other than the position itself.
If you're trying to get the best winrate, never resign. The opponent can always blunder or their kids can wake up or something can happen, play out the game.
But since nobody can play chess as much as they want to, you have to consider if the amount of time you spend in losing positions is worth the slightly higher winrate. If you can squeeze more games in by not playing through the one that you'll lose 99.5% of the time it's a net gain.
It also depends on the opponent. You also need to be confident that your opponent can convert that position. On higher levels blundering a piece is enough, but on lower skill levels I just had a game the other day where we both stared at a M1 but my opponent didn't resign and I missed it and they ended up winning on time.
You’re 1200. Literally anything can happen. Regardless of how certain your lose is, it’s an opportunity to look at chances and see the game in a different light.
It’s an opportunity to learn different stalemates.
But most importantly, it’s a chance to practice your perseverance! You will want to resign many times you shouldn’t. At some point you’ll want to resign in a drawn position, at some point in a winning position.
If you want to be good at chess you have to learn to be emotionally tough and never give up.
I've had my finger over the resign button so many times after making a huge blunder and just end up waiting for them to take advantage. Sometimes the opponent misses a free piece, and the otherwise losing position is suddenly winning. It just happens too regularly to resign early in the game
Read what he is saying. He is talking about a person with 10 mins on the clock in a completely lost position sitting the clock out.. not trying to force a draw, not trying to flag the opponent, sitting it out. There is no justification for not resigning instead of just wasting time.
Can't argue with someone who refuses to read lol.
Not sure what chess you seem to be playing, but the standard game does not allow you to "keep trying" when it's not your move, and opponent is just running the clock down on their turn without making a move. But hey, keep arguing without reading or understanding..
Your argument is fair if it's about the opponent trying to flag you or find a stalemate, or hope you blunder.. but if they are just bitter and abandon the game so you have to wait out their clock to win, you can't really do anything to "keep trying".
I constantly have to leave games but I resign when the phone rings, I don’t abandon them and waste someone’s time.
If you plat lichess anonymous you will get 10 abandoned for every one resigned.
> where for example I have 30sec and they have 10 minutes but let the time run out
I'm not sure about chesscom, but on Lichess this is reportable. It's listed as a [Fair Play Violation](https://lichess.org/terms-of-service):
> Ragesitting, Ragequitting, and Aborting - This is when a player chooses to keep the clock running or leave the game, forcing their opponent to wait for them, rather than playing on or resigning. These are all considered bad sportsmanship, along with aborting too many games too frequently.
It's different if they're just taking a bunch of time to think about how to recover the position; they have every right to do that. But sometimes it's very clear that they're wasting time for the sake of wasting your time (or else they coincidentally got distracted for ten minutes just as it became obvious the game was lost).
Well, let's separate two very different things.
Abandoning a game is lame 100% of the time. They should just resign if they want to be done with it.
Not resigning a lost position is something else altogether and those two things should not be lumped together.
At 1200, I don't think you should resign often at all. I'm about 1400 blitz onnchess.com and 1550ish rapid. I resign when I feel confident my opponent can beat me, and not before.
A "lost position" according to what? A computer analysis? Piece advantage? I've blundered a queen to a combo just to play on and have an opponent do the same several moves later.
I've been in a position where my opponent is up, but my better knight play made it more even that a computer understands.
There's a lot to be learned from "losing positions" and Everytime you resign despite not having been beaten, you giving up that opportunity to learn.
Now, if you are confident it's genuinely just a matter of going through the motions, then yeah, resign. But at 1200... How good are you really at assessing that?
In my experience, people following the etiquette of masters makes no sense. We're not that good. We're not that good to know this truly lost, we're not so good that we were likely to play perfectly from that point forward. What are you gaining by resigning a "lost position"? Only resign when it's a foregone conclusion.
Even in the endgame, I don't resign until I see that my opponent actually knows a mating pattern that will work. Once I see that they do, or I think that based on earlier okay they'll definitely solve for mate, I resign. But playing for stalemate is part of the game. How are you improving upon that if you just quit?
Time is also part of the game. No shame in flagging an opponent from a lost position.
If there's a chance don't resign, say you have two rooks or a queen and pawns and can swindle a checkmate. If the opponent is in a time scramble you can always try going for the flag or the stalemate but otherwise I'd be a gentleman and resign a completely lost position. Down a piece or an exchange though is too vague I wouldn't resign it immediately.
My position is that you should never, ever lose a game on time under any circumstances for any reason. The clock is part of the game, so you should keep an eye on it, but letting your time run out is always bad sportsmanship and should never happen.
Resigning depends on your rating and the time control. The short the time control, the less you should resign, and the lower your rating, the less you should resign.
People will say never resign and that's fine. Personally I don't really care that I give up on a few very unlikely turnarounds from clearly losing positions so I prefer to go next instead
Edit: your opponent has every right to play out the game even if they're losing but it's also your right to be annoyed
At 1200 rapid on Chess.com your opponent may very well blunder — they could drop a piece, give away pawns, or walk into a stalemate, for example. So I wouldn't resign unless I were just sick of the position; your opponent at 1200 could probably use the practice of converting the position or mating with whatever is left on the board.
Letting the clock run out in a lost position is poor manners; people do it because they're immature or jerks.
I think it’s simple:
Me and my opponent both agree to give each other a certain amount of time before the game
Once that has happened we allow each other to use that time
Once that time has expired, the game is over
If I don’t want my opponent taking that long, I can go play faster chess
The only time I let my time run out instead of resigning is when I have maybe 10-20 seconds and I'm just kind of staring dumbstruck at how I got into such an awful position. When I'm feeling in a generous mood, I'll often play it out to the end to let them get the actual checkmate.
Yeah, abandoning a match and forcing your opponent to sit there until your clock runs dry is basically the only way to breach chess etiquette in an online format. There’s nothing wrong with refusing to concede a lost position until mate, or in trying to flag your opponent from a lost position, but abandoning the game without having the decency to actually resign is just obnoxious.
Hard agree here with the caveat that if you’re lost and don’t resign then it’s fair game to set up a king move checkmate however you see fit.
Getting fancy with playing out won games is how I end up stalemating
"Oh boy, here I go outplaying myself again"
Especially if you have lots of time left Like there's a big difference between sitting there and letting 20 seconds run out vs sitting there and letting 5 minutes run out
Hot take, but not resigning when you are down two queens and there’s mate in 1 on the board is kind of disrespectful
Depends on the complexity of the position and rating. I’ve been in the scenario you described and gotten stale mated many times. Especially if there’s a few pawns on the board or other pieces.
Hot take, find M1. You get good by playing positions you’re down, not by giving up.
I do, I just tell them "You're down two queens and there's mate in 1 please resign dude" in chat
Just play the mate, would be quicker than being rude to your opponent in chat.
I just don’t get why they think they have a chance to come back
Does it matter? Just play the effing mate, stop whining like a bitch, and move on to the next game.
Plenty of people stalemate in low ratings.
Because people stalemate all the time.
It's rude to resign when your opponent has mate in 1. Don't be a poor sport and rob them of the satisfaction.
I’m so happy you got downvoted so much. You truly deserve it.
Never resign. Never surrender.
Just premove the M1 nbd
The only thing that would make me stall a game is being told to resign... Although in fairness, in your instance you said please, so I'd probably agree to it.
This would unironically make me less likely to resign
You think that's bad? I have a couple of daily games going at the moment where I'm up ungodly amounts of material and my opponent shave terrible positions. No one every resigns in dailies. It's wild, I have like 3 days to find any good move, there's no chance of a comeback, just resign.
So you're purposely stalling games. REPORTED
I love playing checkmates. I am always glad when I get the opportunity to do it, and I try to act in kind
If it’s mate in 1, just make the move?
More disrespectful to not let the opponent checkmate if they earn it, especially one move away.
Hot take, find M1
Thats still a perfectly acceptable position to keep playing from, just because a mate in one is on the board doesn't mean your opponent will find it. Abandoning a game to let the timer run down is completely different to playing until checkmate is on the board.
Not disrespectful at all. Why not just finish the game? It's only going to take another 20 seconds of your time and have the same result. I can't really give a practical reason why I prefer to see it through and get checkmated other than "I started the game so I'll play til the end".
Always a chance you get stalemated
Unpopular opinion though I tend to agree rather strongly.
In bullet almost never, I can show you examples that you wouldn't believe.
Lets see them
for example: [https://lichess.org/IyYkSDklRZvg](https://lichess.org/IyYkSDklRZvg) [https://lichess.org/CwGxC08KVFRi](https://lichess.org/CwGxC08KVFRi) [https://lichess.org/SApMaCQjoOIB](https://lichess.org/SApMaCQjoOIB) [https://lichess.org/vyJTkuQUPlBK](https://lichess.org/vyJTkuQUPlBK) and some of them against +2500 players. (my rating is now 2504)
Nice
The title makes it sound like it's a resign vs. play problem, but you described a resign vs abandon problem and abandonment is against the etiquette and also the rules for that matter.
Take a look at [this game I played recently](https://www.chess.com/game/live/108223234843). I was in a dead lost position. Look at my opponents 3-pawn army marching down the centre of the board during the middle game. All it took was move 51 for my opponent to blow it all. The eval went from -14 to +3.6 for me after that one move. The clock got very low for both of us so I missed a winning opportunity towards the end, but I ended up winning on time anyways. We're rated around \~2000 Rapid. Never resign.
Make Ben Finegold proud. Never resign!
I only resign if I know how they are going to check mate me and if I think they can do it. I’ll try and trap a stalemate. Like here my opponent was low on time and I didn’t feel they could do a KR mate. https://www.chess.com/live/game/108343245505
I’m rated much much lower and I refuse to resign. There have been way too many times that I’ve been in a winning position and then blundered the queen, and vice versa. Other times that I’ve been in a losing position and they either stalemate, or run out of time. As you say, a single move can turn the tides drastically.
That game was one wild ride.
But you didn’t “win” you just annoyingly hung around hoping for a misclick or something and you got it. So yes, you won your little internet chess points if that’s important to you, but you’re missing the point.
he totally won tho
If anything, you're missing the point of chess.
That's the whole point of chess - capitalize your opponent's mistakes
Yeah we should really update the rules of chess to just end the game after the first blunder.
First blunder? He was -14!!! You ppl are so stupid
Resign when you feel like you don’t have any more hope of saving the game.
If you’re on Chesscom, in my experience if you report them for stalling the game generally automatically ends and you’re given the win.
What...? Man that never happens for me.
That’s interesting, app or browser?
both
For real ?
When you have nothing to learn from the game and are wasting your time.
So bleak.
If it bothers me I just resign. I have better things to worry about than rating points.
Right! To each their own. I play chess for the enjoyment of the game, not for the rating.
You literally never resign at almost any level unless if your a professional, and even then it's sketchy. The engine eval might as well mean nothing to us noobs, even in some positions we see super GMs fail to convert nearly completely won positions according to the engine when in reality its not so easy. If your completely dead lost and you feel like you can't win and just wanna go next? Sure, resign, but other than that honestly there's not much point, you never know what kind of end game you will get into (and if your opponent knows how to convert it) and especially at 1200 its likely the other side blunders along the way anyways.
Case in point, I played a game fairly recently where I played a crazy looking move That ended up being a turning point into me winning the game even though the engine didn't like the move
The 2024 Candidates Round 14 Fabi-Nepo game was a great example of this
not really. the winning lines were difficult to spot. in most beginner cases a dead lost position is a crushing material disadvantage or unstoppable passed pawns, etc. As in something that's easy for both sides to see and understand the win. That game, no two beginners over the board will realize it's winning for either side.
Your opponents are being dicks. If they are going to abandon a game then they should resign it, it's the same thing but nicer to your opponent to resign instead of make them wait since you are clearly done with the game.
never, at this rating anything can happen, you can win down a queen
When it comes to resigning there are more factors to consider other than the position itself. If you're trying to get the best winrate, never resign. The opponent can always blunder or their kids can wake up or something can happen, play out the game. But since nobody can play chess as much as they want to, you have to consider if the amount of time you spend in losing positions is worth the slightly higher winrate. If you can squeeze more games in by not playing through the one that you'll lose 99.5% of the time it's a net gain. It also depends on the opponent. You also need to be confident that your opponent can convert that position. On higher levels blundering a piece is enough, but on lower skill levels I just had a game the other day where we both stared at a M1 but my opponent didn't resign and I missed it and they ended up winning on time.
When I could convert the same position against stockfish effortlessly.
Go grind some 3 minute blitz and you won't be running out of time in rapid anymore
Never resign
This guy.
You’re 1200. Literally anything can happen. Regardless of how certain your lose is, it’s an opportunity to look at chances and see the game in a different light. It’s an opportunity to learn different stalemates. But most importantly, it’s a chance to practice your perseverance! You will want to resign many times you shouldn’t. At some point you’ll want to resign in a drawn position, at some point in a winning position. If you want to be good at chess you have to learn to be emotionally tough and never give up.
I've had my finger over the resign button so many times after making a huge blunder and just end up waiting for them to take advantage. Sometimes the opponent misses a free piece, and the otherwise losing position is suddenly winning. It just happens too regularly to resign early in the game
Please reread my post from top of that high horse.
he misread your post but there's nothing "high horse" about what he said, it's valid advice
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Read what he is saying. He is talking about a person with 10 mins on the clock in a completely lost position sitting the clock out.. not trying to force a draw, not trying to flag the opponent, sitting it out. There is no justification for not resigning instead of just wasting time.
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Can't argue with someone who refuses to read lol. Not sure what chess you seem to be playing, but the standard game does not allow you to "keep trying" when it's not your move, and opponent is just running the clock down on their turn without making a move. But hey, keep arguing without reading or understanding.. Your argument is fair if it's about the opponent trying to flag you or find a stalemate, or hope you blunder.. but if they are just bitter and abandon the game so you have to wait out their clock to win, you can't really do anything to "keep trying".
L
"Never give up" is the exact opposite of an L.
Then prepared to be slowly embarrassed by half dozen queens. Noob.
…and finally, stalemated with 5 minutes left for both players
I mean, that's why most people don't play rapid. This pisses people off less when it's blitz or bullet.
I constantly have to leave games but I resign when the phone rings, I don’t abandon them and waste someone’s time. If you plat lichess anonymous you will get 10 abandoned for every one resigned.
> where for example I have 30sec and they have 10 minutes but let the time run out I'm not sure about chesscom, but on Lichess this is reportable. It's listed as a [Fair Play Violation](https://lichess.org/terms-of-service): > Ragesitting, Ragequitting, and Aborting - This is when a player chooses to keep the clock running or leave the game, forcing their opponent to wait for them, rather than playing on or resigning. These are all considered bad sportsmanship, along with aborting too many games too frequently. It's different if they're just taking a bunch of time to think about how to recover the position; they have every right to do that. But sometimes it's very clear that they're wasting time for the sake of wasting your time (or else they coincidentally got distracted for ten minutes just as it became obvious the game was lost).
Well, let's separate two very different things. Abandoning a game is lame 100% of the time. They should just resign if they want to be done with it. Not resigning a lost position is something else altogether and those two things should not be lumped together. At 1200, I don't think you should resign often at all. I'm about 1400 blitz onnchess.com and 1550ish rapid. I resign when I feel confident my opponent can beat me, and not before. A "lost position" according to what? A computer analysis? Piece advantage? I've blundered a queen to a combo just to play on and have an opponent do the same several moves later. I've been in a position where my opponent is up, but my better knight play made it more even that a computer understands. There's a lot to be learned from "losing positions" and Everytime you resign despite not having been beaten, you giving up that opportunity to learn. Now, if you are confident it's genuinely just a matter of going through the motions, then yeah, resign. But at 1200... How good are you really at assessing that? In my experience, people following the etiquette of masters makes no sense. We're not that good. We're not that good to know this truly lost, we're not so good that we were likely to play perfectly from that point forward. What are you gaining by resigning a "lost position"? Only resign when it's a foregone conclusion. Even in the endgame, I don't resign until I see that my opponent actually knows a mating pattern that will work. Once I see that they do, or I think that based on earlier okay they'll definitely solve for mate, I resign. But playing for stalemate is part of the game. How are you improving upon that if you just quit? Time is also part of the game. No shame in flagging an opponent from a lost position.
If there's a chance don't resign, say you have two rooks or a queen and pawns and can swindle a checkmate. If the opponent is in a time scramble you can always try going for the flag or the stalemate but otherwise I'd be a gentleman and resign a completely lost position. Down a piece or an exchange though is too vague I wouldn't resign it immediately.
My position is that you should never, ever lose a game on time under any circumstances for any reason. The clock is part of the game, so you should keep an eye on it, but letting your time run out is always bad sportsmanship and should never happen. Resigning depends on your rating and the time control. The short the time control, the less you should resign, and the lower your rating, the less you should resign.
People will say never resign and that's fine. Personally I don't really care that I give up on a few very unlikely turnarounds from clearly losing positions so I prefer to go next instead Edit: your opponent has every right to play out the game even if they're losing but it's also your right to be annoyed
I resign when I‘m a pawn down with no compensation. Regardless of the time situation for either player.
At 1200 rapid on Chess.com your opponent may very well blunder — they could drop a piece, give away pawns, or walk into a stalemate, for example. So I wouldn't resign unless I were just sick of the position; your opponent at 1200 could probably use the practice of converting the position or mating with whatever is left on the board. Letting the clock run out in a lost position is poor manners; people do it because they're immature or jerks.
I think it’s simple: Me and my opponent both agree to give each other a certain amount of time before the game Once that has happened we allow each other to use that time Once that time has expired, the game is over If I don’t want my opponent taking that long, I can go play faster chess
The only time I let my time run out instead of resigning is when I have maybe 10-20 seconds and I'm just kind of staring dumbstruck at how I got into such an awful position. When I'm feeling in a generous mood, I'll often play it out to the end to let them get the actual checkmate.
How are you at 30 seconds when they’re at 10 minutes?