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Continue While Dozens Of Points Behind
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 hem 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 Masakis 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 consent 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 wondeful 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.
Sakata 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. ;-)
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. |