Never Resign!

I saw this article on chess.com, and later on I played the following game:



At the top levels, things may be a bit different, but I am very partial to the never resign approach. I actually do this in my tournament games as well. Yeah, it extends some uninteresting games. But I usually find that my opponent's never really seem upset about it. Most of them actually seem like they expect it. Sometimes I get frustrated because the winning line is so easy to see and they are taking too long to play it!

I have had some really great draws though, where things looked really hopeless. I have had a few wins, I think as well. Another reason not to resign is that if you do end up drawing or winning, it is a very memorable game that you could be proud of. I think for me, one of the main reasons I play chess is to have games I could call brilliancies. Come from behind wins or desperate draws often become my brilliancies.

Finally, if you are in a longer tournament, playing hard till the end can actually increase your energy. This probably depends a bit on personality though. I know for me, finishing a game knowing that I played hard till the end leaves me feeling satisfied and ready for more chess. It takes a lot of the sting out of losing. I think, well, that didnt go well, but at least I played hard. If I play like that I will probably win the next game.

For me, that kind of morale boost more than makes up for the extra energy I spend calculating out lines in a lost position.

Oh, one last thing, as a matter of etiquette I do do two things. One, is that when it gets really really lost I try and play as fast as possible. The second is I always play out till checkmate. I think opponent's are less likely to get frustrated with you if you play out till checkmate pretty quickly as opposed to playing really slowly in a lost position and then resigning two moves before checkmate. It is a weird psychological thing, but actually playing the checkmate gives the game a nice finished feeling. It also is logical, I guess. Resigning a move before checkmate is not logical, because you may as well have resigned 5 or 10 moves earlier and spared everyone a lot of time, and it also seems is aesthetically unpleasing.

Well, what do the reader's think? Also, please share any good come from behind wins or other nice things that happened because you didnt resign. I am sure everybody has at least one good story about the benefits of not resigning!