Is saying "well played" after winning rude?

@FredtheCrusher said in #1:
> If the opponent played well but you still won, then you must have played better.

This is true whether the person says "well played" or not. So your feelings must be hurt either way, and the actual saying of the phrase is irrelevant.

But it's also not necessary to get your feelings hurt because you lost a game of chess.

@PuzzleDingske Saying it after losing a game is perfectly fine. My argument is that one shouldn't say it after winning.
@MrPushwood My username is totally irrelevant to this debate.
@Akbar2thegreat if the winner should ALWAYS say "well played" to the opponent it would render the phrase totally meaningless. Also, what is the reasoning behind your statement?
@Chuck_Fess With that logic you could make absolutely every statement as long as it is factually correct. But certain utterances are unnecessary and only rub salt in the wounds, even if true.

I think it depends on the game. If I blunder my queen, resign, and someone tells me 'well played,' they're clearly being rude. If it's a long, tense, drawn out game that I lose, and they say 'well played,' I would assume it was said with good intentions.

Yes

In OTB games sometimes a quick analysis is done & you can both say where you see improvements but be aware as you will disturb the other players who are still playing & will be asked to go to the skittles room or lunch dinner

@FredtheCrusher said in #12:
> @Chuck_Fess With that logic you could make absolutely every statement as long as it is factually correct. But certain utterances are unnecessary and only rub salt in the wounds, even if true.

I'm assuming you are being honest when you say the reason your feelings are hurt is because you inherently played worse than your opponent when you lose. Not everybody has a problem with this fact, but you apparently do. And that's fine, I guess, but you should acknowledge that this problem comes from you, not your opponent.

The reason you then interpret "well played" to be an insult is because of your own insecurity. You are projecting the cause of your hurt feelings onto your opponent.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

@Chuck_Fess As I said, I consider "well played" after a win to mean the same thing as "I played better", which is a show-off and very unpleasant to deal with.

Say it when you mean it, nothing rude there. After an enjoyable, hard-fought, long battle where it'd be against the laws of nature for your opponent not to have had their fair share of fun in it

@PuzzleDingske Ah ok, I misunderstood, sorry.
My point still stands that it is a bit of a brag though, because it implies that they played better.