strange game

This was a recent game I played on FICS. link (click "auto") I have changed the names to protect the innocent. I realize I messed up the opening (my ...f5 was atrocious and I suppose a pawn fits better on c6 than a knight), but could someone explain White's play? I even asked him later on, but he didn't answer. I was just dumbfounded.

To clarify, I meant White's play in the endgame.

Either, white didn't know how to win or, maybe he was just enjoying the overwhelmingly superior position! But really, there was no use going for a third queen :) If he had wanted to win, he could easily have exchanged rooks on move 66, trapping the king and then bring the white king (or a pawn to the last row).

Chess players who reach a level above crude beginners, resign a game when they are in a hopeless position, like having suffered loss of pieces, or the king being entrapped in a mate net. Really bad players play a game until the bitter end, which is resented by most players, as it is a waste of time and effort. To show his disdain, the player then takes ALL the opponent's pieces, crowns all pawns, avoiding the checkmate until the very end, and probably will blacklist you and avoid playing against you in the future.

I disagree 100% with Andreas. A player has every right to play until the end of the game, it is the player who avoids the checkmate by queening many pawns who is the poor sport. I am a strong tournament player and I will resign in most very bad positions, but only If I am playing a strong player, but sometimes I play on playing for stalemate tricks, which often work against players who queen too many pawns...I once pulled out a study like stalemate against a 2000+ player in an OTB tournament game from a "hopeless" position. I also play lots of speed chess with my friend who is currently 2112 USCF and I often pull stalemate tricks on him. I did it two games in a row against him this past summer. As a chess teacher, I teach my young students to never resign as stalemate often happens with beginners. To me, a player who can't win without promoting all their pawns into queens is probably a beginner who doesn't know how to checkmate, so might as well play it out. Also, a great player once said "no one ever won by resigning" (can't remember who said that, but I quote it all the time to my students)

Ray, a guy I met in a chess tournament many years ago, probably taking such advice in the extreme, not only did he not resign but in one occasion, he made a few moves after the opponent announced "Checkmate!" ...

The quote is from world champion Alekhine (mocking people who asked why did not resign earlier, before computers did analysis in 30 seconds...). Sorry Ray, but that is not good advice. Anyway, I quit playing chess some time ago, and I just wanted to be helpful here. The above statement is not an opinion (I never did anything the like), but a statement of fact (witnessed at over-the-board tournaments). I'm afraid your chess pupils will be hated at tournaments...

Yper, very funny!

A. Beck-not true, my students consistently win state championships and are highly respected. You apparently know nothing about scholastic chess where it is very typical for one player to be 20 points ahead in material and wind up losing. It is also very common for one kid to promote several pawns to queens and proceed to stalemate the lone king. Not only do my students play on to checkmate, but so do most other scholastic players. Most coaches I know all tell their students the same thing, "do not give up". None of those players are "hated", except maybe by you and your kind.

I have played more than 1000 OTB tournaments and have played out so called "hopeless" positions hundreds of times and have never been "hated" for not giving up! It is true that I end up losing most such positions (as I would expect), but I have also won or drawn dozens of games that I should have lost. One of my most memorable is a game I was playing against a 2300 master, and he was two pawns up in a rook endgame, surely resignable against a master, but I played on and he hung his rook to a pawn. He did not hate me for that, he only hated himself. Would he have hated me if he had won the game? certainly not. Sorry Andreas, but there is no poor sportsmanship in not resigning. The only poor sportsmanship is when the opponent plays with his prey instead of ending the game when he can. That is what I call a "bad winner" In fact, just the opposite, I have learned from experience that it is a very bad idea to drag the game out for fun or whatever reason. Things can happen, like running out of time maybe because you forget to hit the clock, missing a fork or a snap mate, etc. The game is not over until it is over, and to quote Tartakower, "Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake"

"Stalemate tricks" is exactly it. I've been working through CT-ART lately and have seen at least twenty stalemate traps so far, so I figured it was worth a try. I got suspicious when White wouldn't just trade his queen for my rook at move 48 (to say nothing of 48 Qb7+ K- 49 Rg1 which forces a trade of rooks).

My personal view if that my position is truly hopeless, the opponent will quickly let me know by putting me in checkmate. I may revise this notion if I ever find myself facing Anand for the world championship; until then, I play to win, not just to avoid being mated. (Although, on LG I usually resign in lost positions, since drawing out a game for weeks is too excruciating, even for me.)

"drawing out" was a poor choice of words. :) I meant it in the sense of prolonging.

Ray, I agree with you concerning the poor sportsmanship. As I said, I've seen it done many times, but I would not... And, I know all about scholastic chess. I arbitrated a few big scholastic tournaments, where most of the participants hardly knew how to move the pieces. There were quite a few stalemates, which neither one of the players perceived to have happened, but which I decided to be a draw (by chance seeing it; technically, a stalemate ends the game automatically, independent of a claim by either of the players). Seeing the abovementioned game just made me remember these guys which insist that chess etiquette demands that inferior players resign in a "hopeless" position (although there is no rule saying so)....

Resignation depends on the level of play, time on the clock, and how hopeless the position is.

Either the opponent is clueless (more likely) or feels sleighted at being made to play on and was on the piss take and has given you the last laugh!

2 pawns down in rook ending I'd play on until it was clear promotion or loss of the rook was going to happen (assuming no promotion of my own or mate/stalemate tactics/repetition in my favour).

The phrase was "loss of pieces," not 2 pawns was used by Andreas and that generally is resignable when playing a competent opponent.

I do feel that there it can be disrepectful to play on at some stage, also dependent on time/skill level/swindle potential! This kind of disrepect isn't against the rules, although I have a feeling peer pressure and self-respect kicks in at a certain level!

Although toying with an opponent like a cat does with a mouse is poor form as well.

The time to resign, is when there is no reason to suspect your opponent will have any difficulty winning.

There is a time to play on and a time to quit to save energy, experience is the best judge of this.

I've been at events where juniors with bare kings somehow ended with one claiming victory!

There is a difference between speed chess and slower games, especially ones without sudden death time controls. The bane of OTB tournaments is the slow, bad player who will not resign and makes opponents miss lunch or get home late.

no one ever won by resigning by Savieli Tartakower of course and not Alekhine.

see quote 67

80. Different people feel differently about resigning (Bobby Fischer)

@kouvitch: Any other reference on who actually first quoted that "no one ever won by resigning", Tartakower or Alekhine?

Because that site also mentions: "When you are lonely, when you feel yourself an alien in the world, play Chess. This will raise your spirits and be your counselor in war" as a quote from Aristotle ...

"Never trust a quote you read on the internet." -- Aristotle.

Not chess, but close. No you can't have it back - we stole it, so it's ours!

I knew it before I'd look after on internet... Ok, Alekhine was more knew for his bads words and Tartacover for his "bons mots". Another place (more serious)where we can read it:

wikipedia

Xavier Tartacover est connu pour ses aphorismes et ses jeux de mots savoureux, comme par exemple : « On n'a jamais gagné une partie en abandonnant ! »

A talented chess player, Tartakower is also known for his countless aphorisms, which are sometimes called Tartakoverisms.:

"It's always better to sacrifice your opponent's men."

"An isolated pawn spreads gloom all over the chessboard."

"The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made."

"The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."

"It is not enough to be a good player; you must also play well."

"The move is there, but you must see it." (Horowitz 1971:137)

"No game was ever won by resigning."

"I never defeated a healthy opponent." This quotation refers to players who blame an illness, sometimes imaginary, for their loss.

"Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do."

"Moral victories do not count."

"Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders."