Hello,

I've been lucky enough to get a game with a 7 dan on DGS. I haven't lost any groups or made any major blunders, so I've continued the game for longer than I usually do against a strong player. I've now counted properly and can see I've lost by a good 30 points. But in the last few moves the endgame has begun, and there can't be more than 10-20 plays left. Would you feel offended if someone resigned in this position?

Seeking the opinion of kindly high-dans in particular.

No, not rude at all. Feel free to resign.

Then resign I shall. Though I will blame the loss on Herman.

I am quite used to being responsible for the losses of kyu players...

Ouch. Touché.

you resign when you feel you can not win.
when professionals resign they will find good timing.
example: everything on the board is settled except one area and you are down about 5 points.
if you play conventional endgame you will surely lose. so you will create coomplication that might cause your opponent's mistake but also give your opponent more points if he plays it correctly.
after he answer everything correctly and you will be down 7 points instead of 5. so you resign.

professionals will not play conventional endgame if he knows he will lose. so they will find the point of resign.
but if they continue to play after failed attempt to complicate the game...then it is considered rude. (IMO)
at kyu level.. resign anytime you feel necessary.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

As someone else here put it: "Resign when the game isn't fun anymore".

I think very few players are offended by "early" resignations unless it is at move 20.

Personally, I tend to embarrass myself by continuing to play on too long when both of us should know I'm down by an unsurmountable margin. But hope springs eternal for SDK players and you can always see what happens 10 moves down and then pack it in if nothing breaks loose.

Bruce "Quitter" Young

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Currently reading: Plutarch, Cerebus, and D&Q 25th Anniversary

Do you imagine that your opponent will feel better if you waste a few days playing the last few moves? Or is it that you think that playing it all the way out will leave your opponent with the impression that you are just too inept to calculate the score whereas resigning now will cause him/her to realize that you are indeed less than a complete idiot and should have known enough to resign earlier?

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

But just to put some perspective on the question...
Courtesy of GoGoD here is a quick and dirty search for pro games with a counted result greater than 30(!) points:
Mukai Kazuo 7d - Kitani Minoru 9d, B+47.5 (Komi 5.5) 12th Oza, Final (3rd) Preliminary, Group 6 Final, 1963-12-19
Ishida Yoshio 9d - Kobayashi Koichi 9d, W+35.5 (Komi 5.5) 16th Hayago Championship Final, Game 3, Broadcast 1984-03-25,04-01
Kono Rin 9d - Ogaki Yusaku 9d, W+35.5 (Komi 6.5) 18th Ryusei, Round 1, 2009-05-21 (Broadcast 2009-08-16)
Pak Seung-ch'eol 5d - Kim Chi-seok 4d, B+33.5 (Komi 6.5) 2007 Korean Baduk League, Round 9, 2007-08-26
Ch'oe Cheong 1d - Seo Neung-uk 9d, W+33.5 (Komi 6.5) 5th GG Auctions Cup, Game 1, 2011-06-20
Chang Su-yeong 9d - Guo Juan 5d, W+32.5 (Komi 5.5) 8th Fujitsu Cup, Round 1, 1995-04-01
Ha Ch'an-seok 7d - Yu Keon-chae 6d, W+31.5 (Komi 5.5) 21st Wangwi League, 1986-11-17
Paek Seong-ho 8d - Kim Su-chang 9d, B+31.5 (Komi 5.5) 16th Kukgi, Quarter-final, 1993-06-23
Seo Neung-uk 9d - Yu Ch'ang-hyeok 6d, B+31.5 (Komi 5.5) 17th Kukgi, Quarter-final, 1994-08-11
Kurotaki Masaki 6d - Suzuki Yoshimichi 5d, W+31.5 (Komi 5.5) 17th NEC Shunei, Round 1, 2001-05-12
Kamimura Kunio 9d - Komatsu Hideki 9d, W+31.5 (Komi 5.5) 11th Ryusei, G Block, Game 10, Published 2002-07-15

Note that Chinese pros basically escaped here since I did not search on Chinese-style results >15.25 etc.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Well, occasionally on KGS I will face an opponent who plays all the way up to the pass, presumably without bothering to count, sees s/he is thirty points down when the score is displayed, and resigns. I find that to be very mildly peeving, and didn't want to commit a similar sin.

With regard to resigning earlier, since it's an even game with a 7-dan and I hadn't lost a group, I thought playing on was warranted.

As it happens, I reversed the course of the game with a remarkable super-tesuji and have now crushed my 7-dan opponent by 47.5 points. Thanks to Kitani for the inspiration.

As the proverb goes: "resign while you still can."

Resigning during counting says (to me) that you have a flaw in your character. Resigning before passing/counting, especially on a correspondence server, is always appreciated. No one, and I mean no one, appreciates a player who insists on playing out the last half point ko when they are clearly 30 points behind, had they merely counted (which is presumably easy in a correspondence game).

It can happen in a teaching game that the student shows too much respect for the teacher, and sometimes resignations can occur too soon, with the weaker player being reluctant to attempt the invasion/killing sequence/whatever. But that doesn't sound like the case here.

Calling it a character flaw is a little over blown, don't you think? Maybe to them, the act of resigning is kind of giving the other person accolades. Its not such a big deal.

My advice to the original poster: Just do whatever you think is best for your own mental health and happiness. Don't get hung up on what other people do or say. If you feel that you will enjoy the rest of the game, please continue by all means! If you think that you will not, then resign.

Also, I don't buy the argument that your opponent should be annoyed if you don't resign a clearly lost correspondence game. As we have seen from ez4u's post, highly respected pros may decide to do the same thing if the mood strikes them. The mental power required for a 7 dan to play 1 simple move per day in a game that he has won by a lot is not much. If he thinks that is too annoying, then I wonder how such a person would handle the rigors of real life.

I also don't buy the argument that your opponent should be annoyed if you resign before counting. There could be a number of reasons for doing so, and some of them are no doubt stupid. However, I would argue that caring so much about something so trivial is the real character flaw. The attitude in badukJr's post seems very healthy from that perspective.

Serenity now!

It's a courtesy to the stronger player if you resign when you know you can't win anymore. I know this from experience as I am most of the time in the stronger players position at our club. To play a new game is by far the better way to spend both of your time.

The only thing you could gain from playing on would be praticing endgame, but since your opponent is so far ahead he can just play safe and easy. This way you can't even expect to learn anything since he doesn't need to respond in the best (and probably more complicated) way possible.

I'm not getting hung up, just seeking views on courteous behaviour. If anything your response has made me feel a bit hung up on what you think about me. Now I am worried and my mental health is on the slide.

Do I get credit for this now, or do I only get blamed for losses?