To resign, or not to resign

so, just finished a game against some jo-blow. a quite brutal game, very so-so. now, here is how i see it. his position is all but lost and he chooses to continue to play on? that's fine by me but, being the mood i was in, i thought 'really, you don't want to resign, then lose to 4 queens and a rook". i proceeded to march all my remaining pawns up the board to promote! well, this didn't sit well with my opponent. some choice words and a note on my wall and we were no longer 'friends'-blocked.

was i wrong here? should i have just ended it and moved on? or is fair, fair? when you are left with a king versus to major pieces do you resign?

let's hear it.

slow, painful and demeaning. just when they start to think 'oh, he just needs one more queen to help win easily'. you march another and another up the board till he is only left with one square to go back and forth to. then.. maybe.. a check.. mate. lol

I think you were both a little wrong.  If your opponent wanted to play it out to the end, he should have chatted you something like "I know this is a lost game, but my end game skills need work so I'd like to see how you mate me."  He didn't unfortunately, but your response was deliberately taunting.  Still there have been dozens of previous threads on this topic with hundreds of posts, and many would say you did the absolute right thing.  I just think taking the high road in these disputes is the way to go. Oh and of course I'm a bit of a hypocrite seeing that I'm quite capable of equally churlish behavior.  We all lose our cool now and then.

I resign long before that point.

There's probably a better way to handle it. The way I learned the lesson of resigning: I was a young kid, at about a 1500 level. I played a game against an expert level older player. He beats me as quickly as possible. After our post-mortem and lunch, he says "Kid, if ya know ya gonna lose, give up! I don't play chess to make people suffer, you know!" He plays his friend next round, and for my benefit, mates him with all knights!

This is the correct thing to do. I've done it a few times and threatened to do it others, which usually leads to my opponent resigning.

All's fair in love and chess.

I started a thread about this topic 2 months ago.   Enjoy

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/never-resign5

Both right, both wrong.

#1 never resign!?

#2 As tactics trainer trains us, finish the game with as few moves as possible, which is not done by creating a fourth queen.  Who are you, Eraserhead?!

http://youtu.be/1Ez8QMHwaog

I don't resign but I am just learning. I take the opportunity to try to learn how to checkmate (which I still don't know >_<).

No idea about that stuff on your wall though...

If they keep playing because they need work, that's fine. At my level, I'm told to always play on because of mistakes my opponent may make. However, if I have a winning position I'm going to win the game as quickly as possible without getting four queens if they refuse to resign. That many pieces on the board just because you want to torture your opponent does nothing but increase the chance of stalemate.

always play the game to the end, you might just learn something :D

Naa.  You're just making it clear that when people exercise their right to play on in any way they choose, it's not always enjoyable for their opponent.

More enjoyable than being on the losing end that's for sure.

Seems strange prolonging a game that you wanted over in the first place.  I'd finish him off the quickest way possible.  If promoting extra queens somehow "taught him a lesson," then I suppose it might be worth it, but what are the odds of that lol?

Well, that's one way to show your displeasure. In general, I think it a bad idea. Purposeful prolongation with the goal of simply torturing your opponent on the chessboard can backfire. A rook and king mate is simple and straight forward enough to ensure a victory without risking an inadvertant stalemate due to too many ladies on the board.

I'da laughed had your preponderence of power stalemated your ownself.

@sts512 - I agree. I like to learn by watching the end game.

And @bobyyyy - I agree! I can't tell you how many times I've blundered and thought my situation was done but hung in there and won.

But down to a king against everything I'd resign quick.

But @OP I think you should have finished the guy off as quickly as possible. Extending it in those circumstances is just a waste of time and you're really lucky you avoided stalemate.

Not lucky. I calculated it not to give stalemate and most times I end the game in an expedited fashion. However, this site seems so full of players void of etiquette that the ones with more experience should provide some guidance, no?