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Subject: Re: Why is resigning so acceptable?

Author: Roy Eassa

Date: 10:46:08 10/09/02

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On October 09, 2002 at 13:38:30, Louis Fagliano wrote:

>On October 09, 2002 at 12:43:17, Roy Eassa wrote:
>
>>On October 09, 2002 at 12:34:28, Louis Fagliano wrote:
>>
>>>On October 09, 2002 at 12:10:54, Brian Thomas wrote:
>>>
>>>>A lot of interesting points so far!
>>>>
>>>>What's interesting is that on the very amateur level in which I play, I find
>>>>most people resign out of frustration and being in an inferior position rather
>>>>than a calculated, certain loss.  This seems to go against the essence of idea.
>>>>
>>>>Of course, perhaps the most reasonable point of all is: "The rules allow it."
>>>>In all athletic sports this isn't allowed, at least no sports to my knowledge.
>>>>
>>>>Brian
>>>
>>>That's because it's not called resigning.  It's called forfeiting the game and
>>>that can be done at any time during any athletic sports game.  The only
>>>difference is that it is considered very poor sportsmanship whereas in chess not
>>>resigning and dragging a game on to checkmate is what is considered very poor
>>>sportsmanship.
>>
>>
>>I think he was asking WHY it is considered poor sportsmanship in one and the
>>opposite in the other.
>
>Again, it's because of the random factors.  In an athletic sports game there are
>random factors in the play of the atheletes where anything could happen up until
>the last minute, similar to a board game with dice rolls or the drawing of
>cards.  Thus, it's worth it to "play it out" and considered bad form not to.
>
>In chess, where there are no random factors, if in a certain endgame, a player
>knows how to queen a pawn and then use that queen to checkmate, everything is
>cut and dried and there's no need to continue as there are no surprise dice
>rolls or whatever to upset the routine technical finish.
>


To be (overly?) technical, your opponent could have a heart attack or stroke (or
aneurysm or whatever) or could simply make a collosal blunder.  But it's still
considered bad form to play on in hope of one of these occurring.



>It's like in football where the last tackler is about twenty yards behind the
>runner who is heading for the end zone there is no shame in stopping the chase
>(although forfeiting the game at that point would be different).



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