Resign right before the dame are filled

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To continue from Continue while Dozens of Points Behind, there are those who play a game out to the end, knowing they are behind, and when they see that their opponent makes no mistake up to the dame, resign. Bad bad habit. --Dieter


In my opinion, this shows lack of respect for the opponent: You have forced the opponent to take the trouble of going on while the game was already decided, but you are unwilling to take the trouble of estimating the score and admitting the humiliation of the large difference yourself. -- Andre Engels


What if the dame involve an undetermined seki, which is the difference between a close game and a large loss, the possible capture of 3 large groups of stones about the seki, in a game that was just a social game for fun? Was it then disrespectful and rude not to resign? --TB I guess one should never play for fun?


It is disrespectful to consume the stronger opponent's time when the only way to win is for the opponent to make a large mistake. While such large mistakes sometimes do happen, to force the opponent to prove that they are not that stupid is disrespectful.

If a game-swinging seki or other position is undetermined, then by all means play on. What is assumed for the sake of the discussion here is that in both players' minds the game is clearly won barring an incautious mistake.

The less that is at stake (i.e. social game compared to tournament final game), the greater the disrespect. Resigning early and discussing it is more social and respectful of the opponent's expertise.


Alex Weldon: I'm convinced that my IGS rating would be about one stone higher if I did this, or the other players didn't. Everyone else does it, and about a quarter of the time, I do get so frustrated and impatient that I blunder a large chain of stones in yose and lose. Conversely, I always resign early if I'm clearly losing, so I don't win any such games to compensate for the ones I lose that way.

Ah well, ratings don't matter, and at least I can feel good about being polite even to impolite people.

The other day, I encountered a strange mix of good and bad manners: I was playing a game in person, and my opponent played on when badly behind, until I overlooked a sort of combination shortage of liberties/oiotoshi kind of thing in the last few moves of the game, and lost a huge section of the board. I tried to resign, but my opponent felt bad, and insisted that he resign, since he should have much earlier. We argued about it a little bit (me claiming I deserved to lose, for making such a stupid mistake, him claiming that it was unforgiveably rude of him to allow the game to go on to that point, etc.). It was just a friendly game, though, so we quickly just forgot about it and started playing the next game.


Warp: This is a bit unrelated and much less impolite than resigning at the dame-filling stage, but in my personal opinion resigning on your opponent's turn is a bit impolite as well. If you are going to resign you should be respectful and do it in your own turn.

When it's clear that you have lost and you are going to resign and it happens to be your opponent's turn, it's (in my opinion) polite to wait for him to play and then resign. This is like saying "yes, your response was good, I have nothing."

However, if you resign while your opponent is thinking, that's like saying "well, I'm not interested in your response, so forget it". This is rude and your opponent may feel that he was thinking in vain and it can be frustrating (I personally feel this way when someone does it to me).

SnotNose: I think some players play a move that doesn't work as a last ditch effort to see how you'll respond. If you don't take a moment to think and you play quickly, you may fall into the desperate (and avoidable) trap set up by the move. If you sit there thinking then your opponent begins to realize that you're going to find the flaw in the move and they resign. I think this is okay. (Note also: your opponent may not have seen how bad his move was until you start examining it. When they see the problems on their own, they resign.) The main ways I lose games is that I play one careless move, after playing 100+ careful ones. I am happy to have opponents that require me to play every move carefully but that also resign when I've passed the test and am clearly not going to fall for trick plays at the end of a won game.

Niklaus: I sometimes do this. When I do it I don't mean to offend or disrespect my opponent. It's more like "I trust you to find the obvious response to my crappy move, which I thought would save my dead group, but as soon as I played it I saw that it doesn't work"

Bellicose somthing like this is mentioned in the book FirstKyu it is called looking for a place t resign and it is just that. a last ditch move to see if they respond correctly and then you lose or if they overlook the threat and then you have the oppertuinity to come back.

TJ: I think a resignation is a resignation...I had an op resign just before passes, and I took that to mean "I just realized I've lost the game and probably could have resigned a while ago, so I won't waste more of your time." Resigning after the counting begins might indicate some pretty bad sportsmanship, but before then...well, you win, why ruin it by being steamed up about it?;)

Warp: I'm sorry, but I'm still not convinced. You may think that "by resigning now I'm telling you that I'm sure you will make the correct move so let's just end this". However, in my opinion you should think about your opponent's feelings, not yours. There's a good chance that your opponent will find it rude that you show no interest in his response even though he is thinking about it. There's a good chance that he will feel frustrated since he spent his efforts in reading and double-checking that his answer will work and then you will just interrupt him before he is ready.

In my opinion, if there's a chance that your opponent will find your action rude, then you should not do it.

TJ: Okay, maybe wait until it's your turn...but what matter how late in the game it is? That's really what I was arguing in the above comments. By extension, however, let's not imagine someone is being purposefully rude by resigning during your turn...maybe they counted while you were thinking, and felt like they were looking into the abyss.:) Some people think you're rude if you continue to play a lost game, end of story; some think it rude to resign when there are just dame left; some think it rude to resign once the end-game has been reached. Personally, I think it's never rude to resign, but that a resignation WHILE SCORING is actually a temper-tantrum and not a resignation...the game's already over...and therefore to be avoided for everyone's well being. It's also polite to be understanding of someone losing their composure, however. Sometimes it happens.


(Sebastian:) This page has become almost a lonely hearts column, so let me ask you about this experience, which puts the words "disrespectful" and "bad sportsmanship" into proportion. It doesn't really belong here, but then again, where does it belong?

Yesterday, I had this strange game with Daselki [30k?]. Towards the beginning, he said: "You're gonna win", and then around move 50 he passed. I offered to undo, but he refused and later explained "I didn't know what else to do". He did so again in chuban and shuban, so that it was no surprise when I was winning in the end. So much for self-fulfilling prophecies! When there were only a few points left, he said he was tired and excused himself.

How should one react to this? This was certainly "bad sportsmanship". Not sure if it was "disrespectful" - maybe he just doesn't know any better. On one hand, I felt dissappointed, but on the other I felt sorry for the guy. Should I have asked him to resign? When? Right after he passed for the first time? Should I really ask him to resume - as we agreed - next time I meet him?

BTW, How does KGS handle this? Will the game remain active forever? I'd like to keep it as a souvenir, but while it is in progress I can't save it, and I wouldn't want to resign it, either.

Warp: If he was approximately a 30k then there's a good chance that he simply didn't know the basic concepts of the game, for example what passing really means or that you can actually resign. It may be that he thought passing is just as valid and good as any other move (in some entirely different games that may actually be the case), and perhaps he didn't realize that actually winning/losing has some importance in kgs and that one can and should resign when one has lost.

FeGo: I believe that one can learn a lot by playing yose complete against an stronger opponent. Indeed, i use to resign whenever the difference was clear, but after a time I realized that my main weakness was yose, because most of the time I didnt play it. Although to play until the end waiting for your opponent to make a big mistake is in fact impolite and a lacl of respect, I believe that to play up to the end in non official games is really helpfull for kyu players like me.


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