The Case For Why #
Most chess players are simply not good enough to resign. This is a fact. For the rest of the article allow me to to elaborate on this.
Don’t be fooled by people telling you resigning is the honorable thing to do or that it’s rude or disrespectful to not resign in a completely losing position. Sure, it might, on rare occasions, be a hat tip to your fellow chesser whom you have much respect for to gracefully admit defeat. But during most, if not all circumstances which arise in your case it’s completely unnecessary if not downright foolish. For the love of Caissa please leave all that resigning business to the Masters!!
Dont’ get me wrong. I completely understand the importance of instilling good values, good sportsmanship, respecting your fellow chesser and the noble game of chess itself. This should certainly be done. But teach a child to resign in a “lost” position and he will surely take it too far. There are other ways to cultivate the more desireable qualities, but resigning is not the way. More often than not you are teaching someone to give up. Lay down when they should fight. If you’re getting the feeling this is not just about chess you’d be right. For a young chesser resigning is tantamount to quitting when the going gets tough. You think this will stop at chess? Think again. Okay maybe it’s not that serious, but instead of teaching kids to give up early why not teach them to try harder?
There was a famous study done whose results showed that most people think they’ve reached their absolute limit of physical exertion at 70% of their actual limit of physical exertion. In many ways this parallels the “lost” position in chess. Most simply don’t realize that if they’d calculated one particular line one more move deep that they’d have a winning, even, or only slightly worse position. They’re just not strong enough players to know. Beginner amatuers should train themselves to exhaust every single possible solution to their “bad” position. Chances are, most players when they’re ready to resign haven’t calculated enough lines deep enough to realize whether or not their position is resignable. But even if it is I would still recommend against it. See the superficial case below.
The single most important reason for not resigning is this - Resigning robs you of the opportunity to LEARN. Never mind the superficial argument rergarding rating points, money, etc. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve personally been in and have witnessed secondhand instances where an opponent resigns because they simply “lost a piece” only to go through their post mortem analysis and realize it was a completely even position or even worse, they had a winning position.
What kills me is when I’m playing a young amateur and he throws in the towel prematurely at the first sign of a seemingly hopeless position. I say seemingly because he doesn’t know the difference yet! I would argue that most players don’t know enough about chess to make that determination. Even if the position is objectively hopeless this is exactly the pocket where one can and should cultivate that inner drive to find hope when all is lost. These are the moments when you discover that brilliant tactic and completely turn the game around. It’s a moment I live for in chess!
Those special moments one spends desparately searching for a way out trains your calculation skills, creativity, positional awareness, visualization, focus, and yes, even grit… if chess has such a thing. These opportunities are frequent during the early chess journey. Use them as fuel to learrrrn. There are probably a whole host of other reasons not mentioned why you should NOT RESiGN in a seemingly lost position, but I had to emphasize the wasted opportunity to learn. It’s never mentioned and often overlooked.
The Superficial Case #
Winning. You’re practically throwing games away, losing points and possibly money for no damn reason. Stop that right now! If you don’t care about learning chess but still want to win and you don’t wanna look like a tool just grow a pair and stop resigning. You’ll inadvertently learn anyways simply due to your desire to win, but you’ll just win more often. Some might consider my advice to not resign petty given the superficial case, but afterall chess is merely a game.
The biggest argument for the superficial case is, if you’re objectively lost you might still win. Or said another way, if you resign you will certainly lose, but if you don’t you might not lose.This goes back to the opportunity to learn again. If you’re objectively in a lost position and you don’t resign you’ll be forced to come up with some devious traps. This is known as counterplay. There’s a good chance that if your opponent is just as bad as you are he’ll fall for a trap you set if you do it just right and set enough of them. Unfortunately for your opponent he didn’t realize that, internally, you just went through a rebirth of sorts. At some point you accepted your possible fate, looked death in the face and told yourself, “I ain’t goin’ down without a fight. Bitch”. You were suddenly overtaken by the demon of Bobby Fischer, saw a brilliant, quiet little trap 4 moves deep flash before your eyes. “Shit. He didn’t fall for that one..guess I’ll have to come up with another”. You’ll work like this painfully throughout the game until your opponent gets sloppy due to laziness, fatigue or whatever. With enough stamina something might stick. When it does you’ll be overjoyed.
How can we forget about stalemates and draws? A stalemate or draw means your opponent is exactly as good as you are. There’s nothing wishy washy here. No words to mince. This is why a half point is awarded to each player in these scenarios even if your opponent has an overwhelming advantage and should have won. How does stalemate come about? Usually, purely by accident. Your opponent has so many damn pieces on the board that he forgets all the squares they cover. Without paying attention he stifles your only move without attacking your king. Lucky you. This is the great thing about being so horribly lost. There’s still hope your opponent will blunder stalemate. You can always make it significantly easier for him too. This takes some strategy. Forced stalemate is rarer still but it can and has been done.
Drawn scenarios are also hopeful; Drawn by 3 move repetition, by lack of mating material, or drawn by the 60 move rule. Even if your position looks hopeless, you may still have opportunities to simplify by forcing all mating material off the board, leaving your opponent with nothing but say, a knight and a king, which can’t mate. Or, Say you leave him with nothing but a knight, bishop, and king. Your opponent may not know how to checkmate with this combination of pieces. Chances are an amateur hasn’t studied this and can’t mate in under 60 moves. Tragic. For them.
There is an extremely fine line between resigning when it’s appropriate and when it’s not. The rest of the article will break down when you SHOULD and when you should ABSOLUTELY NOT resign.
From now on, when you’re playing games please keep the following criteria in mind so as to not resign prematurely. If you master these I guarantee you will see you rating climb.
Assess Your Situation #
Before even starting your game you should already know a few things. Namely, your approximate rating and that of your opponent, the time control, and the stakes; is it for money, USCF/FIDE rating, online rating or just for fun?
When Should I Play On?? #
The short and sweet answer is always. Only under the most dire of circumstances should you resign. These are almost as rare as a stalemate in my opinion. Keep in mind, I’m speaking to most chess players, not the masters. Those folk are so far ahead of the average player that they have a set of criteria of their own to abide by.
- Have you been checkmated? No? Play On!
- Is your opponent a GM, IM, NM or any kind of M? No? Play On!
- Are you a GM, IM, NM or any kind of M? No? Play On!
- Does your opponent have an overwhelming material or positional advantage? No? Play on!… Yes? PLAY THE F*CK ON!
- Are you in a hopeless position, 2 moves from a forced checkmate but NOT 100% certain your opponent sees it? Yes? Play On!
- 1 move from checkmate and NOT 100% certain your opponent sees it? Yes? Play On!
- Are you and/or your opponent in a time scramble? Play On!
- Are you losing and is this a blitz, bullet, or rapid game? Yes? Play On!
- Is this a long format game with official ratings and/or money on the line? Yes? PLAY ON!
- Are you 99% certain your opponent sees checkmate in N moves? Yes? Make his ass prove it. PLAY ON!
- Did you blunder a piece in the opening? Yes? I call that a challenge. PLAY ONNNNN!
By now I hope you get the idea. JUST PLAY ON!
When Should I Resign?? #
- Neverrr!!
But also…
- Do you want to play a new game because this one hurts? Yes? Resign
- Did you mess up the opening you’ve been practicing and want to give it another shot sooner rather than later? Yes? Resign
- Are you 100% confident your opponent sees the forced checkmate? Yes? Resign
- Are you delaying the very obvious forced checkmate because you still have 40 minutes on the clock AND are 100% confident your opponent sees it? Yes? Don’t be a dick. Resign
- Are you delaying the very obvious forced checkmate because there is no clock AND are 100% confident your opponent sees it? Don’t be a dick. Resign
* Note that the difficult part is knowing with 100% certainty whether or not your opponent sees checkmate. This is sometimes impossible to determine. If in doubt, I would recommend you just PLAY ON
Well I hope that covers it. If you follow this little guide you will inevitably get better and consequently - or inconsequently - win more games.