Opinion: getting annoyed because your opponent refuses to resign is a sign of arrogance

@mkubecek said in #34:
> The problem is that perception what qualifies as "gently" or "friendly" may differ a lot.

Fair enough.

@coledavis said in #37:
> @forsoothplays in #31
> What is wrong with 'gently' and 'friendly'? They are superficially disguising the intimidation. It's a bit like, "Can I show you the door?"

...and case in point, I suppose.

However, I think you guys are missing some context. In the first place, I qualified this behavior in response to *intentional stalling.* “But how could you possibly discern that your opponent is intentionally stalling?” you may ask. (How do you know your opponent is trying to intimidate you and not just teasing?)

This is the other piece of context I failed to mention: when I talk about intentional stalling, I am only talking about *daily* chess games where intentional stalling is usually obvious, and unambiguously distinct from playing the position out. Moreover, it’s a genuine problem of malicious trolling that is obnoxiously common. And, unlike “stalling” in a live chess game, it is not innocuous because a staller can force a game to continue for up to a year or more after the position has been lost—depending on the allowances for vacation time and how many days are allowed for a move. I do not understand why you would want to protect the feelings of someone who is trolling his opponent maliciously because he might take a little tough love the wrong way. This is incongruous with the regular ethics of internet space (i.e. malicious trolling deserves non-malicious trolling in turn).

Lastly, you seem to think I am trying to give myself and others license to harass players at whim if the latter do not resign. In fact the qualifications I placed on such behavior scarcely recommend it as a normal reaction to players not resigning. For that matter, I scarcely made an allowance for it *at all.*

@forsoothplays #41
"a genuine problem of malicious trolling that is obnoxiously common. "

I think that you are reduced to selecting special cases, such as classical game times and maybe correspondence chess. In any case, I do not believe that 'stalling' is common. It seems to me that there is an occasional disagreement about precisely when a player should resign. Below is an example of my resigning (black, move 34). I think that it could be argued that I could have resigned a little earlier, but it could also be argued that I could have waited until white had started a pawn advance.



I really think that the only problem is that of people getting rather over-sensitive about their own place in the world. The losing player is probably not interested in upsetting you, and you should be a bit less quick to take offence.

...and also there's offensive nicknames way below any taste, downright violent ...

...and these individuals think it's normal because that's how they were raised

I resign if I am losing and I have less pieces and bad pieces

@coledavis said in #42:
> I think that you are reduced to selecting special cases, such as classical game times and maybe correspondence chess. In any case, I do not believe that 'stalling' is common.
Actually, my impression from discussions here is that people who are most concerned about stalling are those playing 3+0 and shorter time controls where "stalling" (mostly rage quitting) usually means having to wait for a whole minute or so. People who have to wait 30 (45, 60, ...) minutes for their absent opponent in a swiss tournament tend to be not nearly as vicious...

@pawngrid said in #1:

> What do you guys think?

Completely dependent on circumstance. I would say though that it's natural to get annoyed. Some people use this annoyance to troll and (in my opinion) if you want to make five knights and checkmate with them, go ahead! You just might stalemate.

I would say where it becomes arrogance is when people start being verbally abusive in chat, insisting on resignation instead of checkmating, and stalling one move before checkmate. To many opponents, not resigning is actually a sign of respect, as it allows someone to conduct a pretty checkmate. In other words, it's not always disrespectful to not resign as I know some people get *pretty mad* when they think that they were denied the chance to checkmate.

I wouldn't really call it arrogance to be annoyed. It's fine to be annoyed I think, as long as one doesn't take it out on the opponent.

@a_Tauri said in #10:
> ...
> Sportsmanship is acknowledging defeat when it has been definitively accomplished. For example, complimenting your opponent, when the game is over.
> It is a lack of sportsmanship to abandon the game without resigning, because it means not accepting defeat.
> Not resigning in a lost position doesn’t means anything in itself. If one prefers to play until he gets checkmated, it’s his business.

You perfectly summarize my view on the topic.

@a_Tauri is quoted (#47) as saying, in pertinent part,

"It is a lack of sportsmanship to abandon the game without resigning, because it means not accepting defeat."

This does point out a crucial distinction, in my opinion.

I am never upset if my opponent keeps "playing on" trying to win from a lost position. Indeed, every so often my opponents DO win from such a position. Just as (very recently, in fact) I often keep "grinding it out" from a bad position only to surprise myself, many moves later, by winning.

That is much different from just letting the game run out, without moving, in an obviously lost position for minutes on end until ... it finally ends.

When somebody does that, I always note a little warning on my screen telling the opponent that he might suffer a consequence from doing that if he does it too often.

But usually when I see that little warning ... the opponent has already left and doesn't appear to be able to see it! So, as far as I can tell, he or she is not actually being warned by it.

I've commented on this before, and some have pushed back for reasons that aren't really clear to me. But I can say that I still experience it more frequently than I'd prefer.

It's not a huge deal. But it could be improved. And I don't think such clock-spiteing behavior is an example of good sportsmanship.

But actually playing on in a losing position? I don't condemn that; I even think that sometimes it's advisable.

The clock spite-ing is unsporting. It happens a lot in anon-anon games. I wish Lichess would change the UI to put the "Your opponent has left the game." message ON the board instead of under it. On mobile phones when using the browser version (i gave up on the app due to repeated hanging in the past) that message is not visible unless you scroll down to below the board and I often end up waiting for a minute or more before realizing that they left the game. If placing the message on the board is objectionable they could change the color of the border of the board or something when a message occurs to make it easier to notice.

People should be ashamed when they are not good enough to convert an advantage to a win, so they ask for there opponents resignation.