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Continue While Dozens Of Points Behind
Path: BadHabits · Prev: WatchTheGameOnTheTableNextToYours · Next: WastingTimeInALostGame
Keywords: Problem
Truly a bad habit that is comitted by the weaker player, disturbing the stronger one. "Dozens" is the complaint at my level (1 kyu) but when playing against a 6 Dan, I might play until the end, while 10 points behind, thereby annoying the Dan player. This habit comes mostly from not being able to count a game, and since that is a matter of skill, one should not be too hard on the sinner. But when you know you are fifty points behind, please resign. --Dieter Do many folks feel this way? I often find that people seem disappointed when I resign a game I'm clearly losing (and I don't mean right before the end). I've actually become a bit more hesitant to resign recently since I started getting the impression that most folks would rather play it out. I would be interested to find out if most players would rather their opponents resigned in these situations. It could depend on the players level, I suppose. I can imagine a player who does not like to have his wins conceded by his opponents, only because he enjoys making the large kills and actually counting the big wins. I think that this habit/obsession becomes rarer and rarer as the level of plays increases. I also think that such a mindset is completeley wrong in the frame of Go. Although winning is ofcourse the objective, to me another objective is to enjoy the game. The players are actually, together, 'composing' a game which should be enjoyed by both. If the composition becomes 'false', none of them will enjoy it, and resigning the game shows that you respect your opponent's 'musical ears'. Guo Juan once said that (western?) amateur players suffer when playing, constantly chastisising themselves or their opponents for the weaknesses of their moves. I suppose her message was that we should play moves that we enjoy and try to take pleasure from the game, much in line with Takemiya Masaki's thoughts :-) Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I find this rather irritating, at least if it happens in a game with high thinking time. If it is a game with only 15 minutes or so, or my opponents continues as if it were, I don't mind continuing, but I find it very irritating to have to wait and wait for the opponent's moves when the only thing decided by them is by how many points he is going to lose. The reverse also holds, causing me sometimes to resign when things are 95% rather than 100% lost. In general, my opinion is that playing on implies that one should try to win. I think that that is a better criterion than the amount one is behind. Being 10 points behind in a dead end game is probably more reason to resign than being 40 points behind in an early middle-game position with several potential weak groups on the board. Playing on in a completely lost position is in my opinion wasting the opponent's time as well as insulting him/her by implying that (s)he might well still lose from this position. But as said, that is all just one man's opinion. -- Andre Engels I agree that playing on implies that you should try to win, but for an amateur game where both players are still learning, even if one is far ahead it is still a learning experiance. Although starting a new game would be a learning experiance as well :) -- Andrew B I completely agree. I am very much a beginner and if I resigned the games where I would have lost (quite a few), I would have had no practice in the endgame. I find that I learn a lot about the weaknesses of my groups in the endgame, and therefore am thankful I played them out. -- SifuEric TakeNGive 11k: I used to continue playing when i was hopelessly behind, until a much stronger player expressed annoyance with me. (In the hope that other strong players would like to play me, i've mended my ways.) He chastized me for hoping he would lose attention and blunder so i could swindle? him in the endgame; but that's not what I was doing. My reason to continue was this: Even losing, i was having fun. It seemed a shame to stop just because I was losing -- especially to a strong player whose moves were wonderful to watch. (What i'd forgotten was that just because I was still having fun, that did not mean he was still having fun...) I suspect this is a reason behind the "disappointment" mentioned by RussellKhan above -- nobody wants to stop if they're having fun.
There also may be a cultural factor at work. Shigeno Yuki? (pro 2-dan living in Italy) wrote that she had to get used to Westerners continuing lost games (see This seems like a good place to link to a conversation on The Art of Resignation. -- Matt Noonan
BillSpight: When I was 2-kyu I chanced upon the Nihon Kiin Central Hall by the Tokyo train station (long since moved to Ichigaya). I got a game with a young man who gave me 2 stones. I was trailing, not by dozens of points, but by a substantial margin. At the end I desperately played some kikashi and managed to live inside his "territory". The swing of 25 points or so let me eke out a win. These days I play occasionally with friends. I rarely play anyone under 4-dan. I can tell you that we make plenty of blunders. Once I was wondering for ages why a 5-dan hadn't resigned. I dropped my guard and proved him right. It has been at least 6 years, and I am still embarrassed by that loss. IMO, if White is giving 4 or more stones, the game should be regarded as a teaching game. If White wants to stop and say, "I have won, let's go over it a bit," fine. But with a smaller handicap, White should not get on a high horse. Online games where somebody is paying for the time are another matter. Wasting their time in a probably hopeless cause is ungracious. SakataEio never resigned. Once in a commentary he remarked, "I played on because I wanted to see how badly I would lose after making 6 mistakes in a row." He lost by 6 points, BTW. ;-) Scartol 25k: I think this gets into some matters of pedagogy. Most teachers seem to approach their students as incapable of seeing things that they cannot. If/when I become skilled enough to teach others Go, I doubt I will insist that someone resign. When teaching writing, I wouldn't commit to reading a student's work unless I had enough time to respond thoughtfully to it. I had to read a lot of really bad writing, so I think the analogy is valid. Just my point of view (I'm a beginner): I don't like to resign, and I don't like my opponent to resign, for a simple reason: I want to see the final black-white patterns on the board! I find them beautiful, esthetic; you can see the b/w struggling for space, it looks like a fractal, and it's always different... and I'm amazed by the fact that such views are created as a side effect of a competition: this makes them a kind of natural beauty. I sometime take pictures at them before putting away the game (I'm lucky to play with a nice looking set). All this is true only when dead stones has been removed, and dames filled. It takes a little time (but not much compared to the length of the game) but I find it visually rewarding. Does anybody agree?
-- Marco75
I certainly agree that the final position of a go game is a beautiful thing, but don't you think the beauty is strongest when both sides control nearly equal areas on the board? In this respect, resignation prevents an ugly imbalanced final position. :) -- MattNoonan Unlike in other games, Go players learn to accept things I think which are realistic. Fifty pts behind in a game against a strong dan player is insurmountable. But beginners generally are in the middle of that process that in part is dealing with learning about that very thing, strength. For example, when I began learning, I despised the idea of taking a handicap. My feeling was and still is that i learn far more by getting whooped in an even game. In fact after losing a 9 stone game against a one dan, i came back to play him even and come within 12 pts! Assume nothing may be the moral. As a strong kyu player i can understand how annoying it can be to play against less sophisticated players. However, as a recent beginner, I can also state that there can be percieved a veneer of rude snobbishness among experienced players. The answer is best stated at the beginning that a limited time is involved. And every good doctor needs patience. --Stevertigo Dieter's comments on Steve's opinion: there can also be perceived a veneer of rude snobbishness among native English speakers. I guess that was unintentional - sorry. Concerning the point you are trying to make, the number of points by which you lose to a stronger player is meaningless indeed. Handicap forces the stronger player to exert his full strength. If you lose, it will either be due to a tactical mistake losing the semeai or due to excessive slow play. In both cases you will learn from the loss. Play her even handed and she'll win even if you don't make mistakes you can learn from. I played a 9x9 as white with a newbie recently. I was far ahead (20+) but he passed in the end-game when one of his groups could still make life. I killed the group rather than passing (I thought he had assumed it was alive.) He complained that I should have accepted his pass rather than humiliating him. I explained that I thought it was a teaching game, and all ended well. Perhaps we should try to make it explicit, at the start of the game, if we consider this a teaching or "real" game. --Gorobei I tend to play on--of course,I usually think I'm even or close (25 kyu). I also had a game at It's Your Turn where I went from about 60 points down to win by 36.5 points, so all depends on luck I guess.--TimBrent I also tend to play on, but it depends on our relative strengths. In a game where I am behind to a nominally weaker player, I'll often reckon that my chances of substantially increasing my territory or killing some groups in the endgame are good, and will play on. On the other hand if the opponent is much stronger than me and the game is close, I won't even try the borderline risky invasions and am more likely to resign. -- Martin If my opponent has been polite, and gracious and honorable, and I am sure I have no way to win, then and only then do I resign. If there is a chance of winning, I refuse to resign. If you think this is rude then you are a snob, unless you are a 9 dan professional. If on the other hand, my opponent has misled me about their rank and refused to give me the proper handicap, sat down only to get a practice game and an easy win, then they deserve to sit through every excruciating dumb ass play I can think of, and you can be sure that I play some extra stupid ones just to screw with you. You never owe your opponent a resignation while there is a chance in your mind to win, maybe you see something they don't. I have pulled off with no doubt 3 wins in the end because I captured large teams of my opponents stones, not because they were as you say bored with playing me but because they were so high ranked but because they didn't see what I saw and the set up play for capturing the team looked so small as to seem like they were plays a 20 kyu would make at the end of a game. Go choke on your meuslix. In one case my opponent started a ko fight with false eyes, refusing to live a group he could have lived with one play to reduce an insecure moyo when all fuseki had not been played. I can tell when my opponent sees my plan, and I can tell when my opponent sees that I can see their plan. I've never asked my opponent to resign, no matter how low they were, even if it was their first game, only once, and that was because they were asking me to let them escape and them escape. Don't attack me and not cover your house and expect me to resign, your lead is virtual. I never want my opponent to resign when he sees a way to win, or even when he thinks he does. Asking your opponent to resign early is asking your opponent to think like a loser, and that's more insulting than playing the game out. Sometimes, I've learned a new play even against something I've beaten, so there is knowledge gleamed even in very mis-matched games. You owe your opponent nothing, you owe yourself respect. text Dieter: You owe respect to yourself AND your opponent. No one can force you to resign early but neither can one force you to play in the first place. I have learnt to avoid certain players, not because they see things I don't see but because they monopolize my weekly playing evening with a game that has become uninteresting after 50 moves. Practicing patience is important, but practicing fighting close games is important too. Path: BadHabits · Prev: WatchTheGameOnTheTableNextToYours · Next: WastingTimeInALostGame This is a copy of the living page "Continue While Dozens Of Points Behind" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |