When to resign?

[snorri]

It's amazing what you can learn by not resigning if you are used to always resigning when things look pretty grim. One way to think about it is: if you are getting totally dominated by a player who is supposedly your own level, maybe there's a reason this player is not rated higher. Maybe he/she throws a lot of games in the endgame. There are an awful lot of players who aren't good at winning won games. They miss things when the liberties get short, or they just get tired and careless and don't have the endurance to play a long game. Maybe they get greedy when they are ahead and assume you are pushover. Whatever. If you resign too early against such a player, you're not getting a chance to exploit their biggest weakness. Although I like to think I have reasonable resigning habits, there are some regular opponents I have where I do something different. With them, I've learned to just be patient. 30 points behind going into the endgame in not necessarily fatal against them.

[daniel_the_smith]

Been waiting for this topic to come up so I could post this game.

Start looking at move 282 and the few immediately after it.

http://www.online-go.com/games/sgf/272/272605-303_daniel_the_smith-vs-OlegS.sgf

I play extremely erratically on OGS and gave my opponent several chances... but by 240 or 250 there was really no way for me to lose.

[tezza]

Hi,

Illluck, I concede your point. Still trying to get better at counting.

But I must say that, as Li Kao describes, it felt that way after I lost control of the fight in the north-west corner. I then had only two star point stones (west, south-west) versus Black’s four star points in the south and eastern side. It was as if I had given my opponent handicap stones .

Snorri, wow, 30 points down and you still can catch up!

Cheers
tezza

[ACGalaga]

Been waiting for this topic to come up so I could post this game.

Start looking at move 282 and the few immediately after it.

Ok, I'm dd20somethingK and I can see white lost by that point (unless I'm not seeing everything clearly...). My question is, why did white continue to play after you passed... twice?!

Are you using this as a good example of a resignation? I'm not at that level yet, but I probably would have just ended it after you passed the first time. Seemed like a good place to end the game.

[daniel_the_smith]

Been waiting for this topic to come up so I could post this game.

Start looking at move 282 and the few immediately after it.

Ok, I'm dd20somethingK and I can see white lost by that point (unless I'm not seeing everything clearly...). My question is, why did white continue to play after you passed... twice?!

Are you using this as a good example of a resignation? I'm not at that level yet, but I probably would have just ended it after you passed the first time. Seemed like a good place to end the game.

It's an example of:
* Being way behind and not resigning.
* What a hint that you should resign looks like.

[daal]

It's amazing what you can learn by not resigning if you are used to always resigning when things look pretty grim. One way to think about it is: if you are getting totally dominated by a player who is supposedly your own level, maybe there's a reason this player is not rated higher. Maybe he/she throws a lot of games in the endgame. There are an awful lot of players who aren't good at winning won games. They miss things when the liberties get short, or they just get tired and careless and don't have the endurance to play a long game. Maybe they get greedy when they are ahead and assume you are pushover. Whatever. If you resign too early against such a player, you're not getting a chance to exploit their biggest weakness. Although I like to think I have reasonable resigning habits, there are some regular opponents I have where I do something different. With them, I've learned to just be patient. 30 points behind going into the endgame in not necessarily fatal against them.

Hm. It seems my opponents have been reading your post.

[tezza]

Hi ACGalaga,

My question is, why did white continue to play after you passed... twice?!

I suggest W may have misread. It may have appeared to W that the B dragon in the upper left quadrant had only a false eye in H15.

Cheers
tezza

[ACGalaga]

It's an example of:
* Being way behind and not resigning.
* What a hint that you should resign looks like.

Well, I mean... we're still DDK. Hopefully we'll get to a level to properly read out a game to see wether it's a game to resign or not. For now, I don't think it's wise for beginners to just give up, but instead notice their mistakes and learn from them.