Title. After a recent losing streak in blitz where I fell for a lot of different opening traps in a row, I figured I'd ask when exactly all hope is lost, and furthermore when exactly neither person can expect to win.
Concrete position, concrete answer. Diffuse chess bla-bla leads to nowhere.
Correct answer: Never
Useful answer: It is not about hope, but about fun. Play a game, as long as you have fun with it.
I am fine with people who play till mate as long as they do not stall on their clock. Letting time run out is the most annoying thing in online chess (and chess in general).
Personally, I am in the habit of playing til mate and never accepting draws. My thinking is: if one chooses to resign in a 'lost position' or chooses to accept draws then one has to ask the question 'when do I resign and when do I accept draws?' - Not an easy question to answer... and I have seen many opponents resign far to early and accept draws in winning positions. I would rather play til mate and play for the win than going down the slippery slope that leads to resigning early when there is still some fight left in the game. And I don't wanna bother myself with the question 'when to resign or accept draw?' I believe that my approach leads to a tougher playing style and there is the occasional stalemate from a lost position which is nice... of course, there are those who hate my style of play but such is life. JMO.
depends on your+your opponents level.
1) I'd say it's ok to never resign if you are a complete beginner. But once you figured out the basics, don't be one of those who never resign regardless of the position and opposition.
For example: If you know how to mate with K+Q with 1400, chances are, your opponent with 2000 or 2500 can do it as well with sufficient time left.
Stalling in tourneys makes things quite a bit worse as @alekhinesgun1937 pointed out. There's not a lot of potential improving a completely lost position (for your level) and I doubt that defending down a couple of pieces is that fun either ;) Going afk is even worse than this.
When it comes to "just lost" positions where you see a fighting chance at the game level, go ahead and play on. Same goes for time scrambles.
To give you a more concrete and personal answer: I don't think that you are resigning too late. In fact, 1-2 resigns were too early for my taste. In the game against dailam2008 you resigned being down a knight for a pawn in the opening against a 1377 opponent (!). I don't think players at this level have a technique to justify this action.
The resignation against rezaachmaz in https://lichess.org/Nrh1tSW5#54 was rather early as well. In https://lichess.org/p2yxHNJo you could have played on because the opponent was low on time and not moving too fast in the last few moves.
This https://lichess.org/rbleQGlk/black#81 looks about the right timing.
However...this is only one of many possible angles.
2) If you have small but relevant fighting chances (let's say 2-3% chance to save the game) but you feel like you are wasting your time and not learning anything by playing on, it's ok to resign. Playing on is obviously fine as well.
3) Aesthetics: Let's say you've found a nice combination and won the opponent's queen and are happy with the game. However, if the opponent thinks thoroughly for 5-10 minutes and makes you play 50 more meaningless moves to take every one of his pieces and queen two another pawns, it's just another one of the "opponent does not resign" games. This is of course a personal opinion, in fact it's ok to employ such "techniques" to have a better chance in the rematch if you so wish.
Resign: When I notice that I spend most of my time on thinking about whether it's correct to resign or not rather than trying to find a good move.
Accept draws: When I'm worse in a one-sided position that I'm not going to win anyway.
Offer draws: When I'm theoretically better in a one-sided position, have tried everything and finally accept the fact that my opponent found a successful defence.
(With "one-sided positions" I mean positions where one side is "playing for 2 results".)
Just curious is it just me, or does 3 0 seem to have more of this 'never resign' mentality than other time controls? Anyway ... it narks me off....lol
Win or lose. Never draw.
If you have time left to ask yourself whether to resign or not, then that time had better be spent before thinking to avoid getting into that kind of position.
As for drawn, only accept it or offer it if it is a clear draw. Otherwise you might as well agree on a draw in the initial position.
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