When is the right time to resign or continue a game?

Alberich · Post by **Alberich** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:35 am

What about when playing 9x9 games? Do you "play out" the entire board and not bothering to resign? By pointing out the smaller board size makes me realize the best indicator of when to resign is not counting but figuring out that you can't surround your opponents stones. But this is a harder judgement to make on a 19x19 goban. Would it be better to think of the 19x19 board as a combination of 4 9x9 grids and thinking of them in 9x9 terms rather than one large 19x19 board?

Uberdude · Post by **Uberdude** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:11 am

Alberich wrote:. Would it be better to think of the 19x19 board as a combination of 4 9x9 grids and thinking of them in 9x9 terms rather than one large 19x19 board?

No

jts · Post by **jts** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:29 am

Alberich wrote: By pointing out the smaller board size makes me realize the best indicator of when to resign is not counting but figuring out that you can't surround your opponents stones.

not sure what this means. It is 100% possible to win on 9x9 without surrounding your opponents stones.

xed_over · Post by **xed_over** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:58 am

Alberich wrote:What about when playing 9x9 games? Do you "play out" the entire board and not bothering to resign? By pointing out the smaller board size makes me realize the best indicator of when to resign is not counting but figuring out that you can't surround your opponents stones. But this is a harder judgement to make on a 19x19 goban. Would it be better to think of the 19x19 board as a combination of 4 9x9 grids and thinking of them in 9x9 terms rather than one large 19x19 board?

you should switch to playing with a simplified version of Chinese rules -- that way you can simply say, the one with the most stones on the board wins. From that, you can get a better picture of when to resign.

Dusk Eagle · Post by **Dusk Eagle** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:05 am

You shouldn't be spending time worrying about whether to resign or not. Resigning is what you do when you know you've lost, so if you don't know you've lost, don't resign. Thinking about it any harder than that is wasting time you could have spent thinking about other things.

Alberich · Post by **Alberich** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:22 am

Dusk Eagle wrote:You shouldn't be spending time worrying about whether to resign or not. Resigning is what you do when you know you've lost, so if you don't know you've lost, don't resign. Thinking about it any harder than that is wasting time you could have spent thinking about other things.

But isn't one of the skills of Go is reading the board correctly and assuming you've made a mistake or a series of mistakes...you'd know its time to resign? For example, in regular chess...there are games that I know I've won but get annoyed I have to "prove it" by playing out the rest of the game to win the point. But whenever I'm losing a chess match...I don't resist uselessly knowing it's pointless to continue. I'd resign as soon as I see I can't win and my opponent won't make any mistakes bringing home the point.

In the games I've seen on the Go server the losing player ususally resigns before the opponent "proves" the point by filling out the rest of the board with stones. On 9x9 games I've played against the computer...I immediately resign if it's able to capture a group of stones since it's nearly impossible to come back from this on such a small board. But a 13x13 or 19x19 the dynamic is different so therefore there has to be another way of figuring out one's hopelessness in continuing the struggle. So I think this job of determining when it's proper to resign is actually harder in 19x19 games than with smaller boards.

hyperpape · Post by **hyperpape** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:40 am

Alberich wrote:In the games I've seen on the Go server the losing player ususally resigns before the opponent "proves" the point by filling out the rest of the board with stones. On 9x9 games I've played against the computer...I immediately resign if it's able to capture a group of stones since it's nearly impossible to come back from this on such a small board. But a 13x13 or 19x19 the dynamic is different so therefore there has to be another way of figuring out one's hopelessness in continuing the struggle. So I think this job of determining when it's proper to resign is actually harder in 19x19 games than with smaller boards.

From the way you write about the game, I conclude that it's too early in your development as a go player to be worried. If you play with a teacher, they may indicate if you are playing out hopeless positions. Otherwise, don't worry. You'll be stronger soon, and it will be clearer.

Dusk Eagle · Post by **Dusk Eagle** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:55 am

Counting is a skill in Go; resigning isn't. The purpose of counting (or any other type of assessment of your overall position) shouldn't be so you can say "Oh, I lost :(", it should be so that you can see how you are doing and make a plan to win. If you're ahead by a lot, play safely and don't start needless fights. If you're behind, try to make the game complicated. If you have a lot of influence, try to attack your opponent in order to make the best use of it, etc.

Resigning comes into play when you are able to assess the situation and determine that you cannot come back. If you don't know whether you can come back or not, then you don't know for certain that you've lost yet, so obviously you shouldn't resign.

jts · Post by **jts** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:19 pm

HKA wrote: I have no problem with trying to live in a territory where life should be impossible, if living would win the game.

I do have a problem with losing 30 minutes of my life while you try to make a 30 pt loss only a 25 pt one.

You are, of course, much stronger than I, and have won the right to say things like this. And your observation that tight endgames are played more aggressively is apt. But if I said "don't waste my time, I'm winning by 25 points," you would have every right to call me arrogant... I've lost 25 points in the endgame more than once, and I'm sure it will happen again. By the same token, if I want to try to get back 25 points in the endgame, I hope my opponent will be understanding. If it turns out I only get five points back, well, can't win them all.

Furthermore, if in an even or properly handicapped game I have been dominating for the first 150 moves, it is perfectly reasonable for my opponent to assume that the reason we are evenly matched is my weak endgame, rather than my aggressive sandbagging or my Lance-quality pharmaceuticals.

TKP · Post by **TKP** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:44 pm

Go is about respecting your opponent and yourself. You should continue the game as long as the game's still enjoyable for both of you. Once a game is clearly lost continuing to play is imposing yourself upon your opponent and doing disrespect to both of you. As long as there's still some fight left the game should be fun to continue. Try your best and then resign when you've exhausted all the reasonable opportunities to turn the tables.

Phelan · Post by **Phelan** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 8:34 pm

I tend to resign too soon, so something that helps me when I think I've lost, is to try to play a few moves in different places I feel my opponent has some weakness. If his responses don't lead me to believe that things will change, I will resign after 3-5 attempts.
(I think something like this was mentioned before in the thread)

Still, as others said: If you don't know if you've lost, keep playing. If you feel you might be annoying your opponent, ask. Fretting about it won't do you much good, since it's harder to focus on the game.

Alberich · Post by **Alberich** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 7:11 pm

Phelan wrote:I tend to resign too soon, so something that helps me when I think I've lost, is to try to play a few moves in different places I feel my opponent has some weakness. If his responses don't lead me to believe that things will change, I will resign after 3-5 attempts.
(I think something like this was mentioned before in the thread)

Still, as others said: If you don't know if you've lost, keep playing. If you feel you might be annoying your opponent, ask. Fretting about it won't do you much good, since it's harder to focus on the game.

This appears to be good advice. But there may be a problem with this especially when playing at smaller board sizes. For example - can you imagine the embarrassment to play on not realizing you've already lost when trying to play go games at a faster clip - say at 9x9 size?

At 13x13 I could see this advice working but not at 9x9.

Phelan · Post by **Phelan** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 2:25 am

I don't think it would matter that much in 9x9, since the games are relatively short and fast. I don't feel that bad resigning 9x9 games too early, so I tend to just resign those and start anew, unless it's some sort of tournament. I tend to take tournaments pretty seriously.

And don't forget that asking is always possible.

Edit: An added note on embarassment - I recently had a 19x19 game where a group of mine was separating two large groups of my opponent (one eye-less, the other one-eyed). Not having read thoroughly, I thought both of his groups were dead, and had no idea why he wouldn't resign. Around 30-40 moves later, he showed me that I was short on liberties on that group, and had been dead all that time. He had been wondering why I wouldn't resign!
That's much worse. I've had one of these "lost game a long time ago" against a visiting japanese high dan player. I felt awful when I realized I had been wasting his gracious time all along. :-?

I probably should have asked.

GhostWhite · Post by **GhostWhite** » Fri Sep 28, 2012 6:27 pm

The correct time is when the opponent is so confident in winning that they give you more time. Funny that, I have yet to encounter an opponent who would give me more time when I was in the lead or the game was close.

Phelan · Post by **Phelan** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 8:04 am

GhostWhite wrote:The correct time is when the opponent is so confident in winning that they give you more time. Funny that, I have yet to encounter an opponent who would give me more time when I was in the lead or the game was close.

I'll do that if I'm enjoying the game and not in a hurry.
However, lately I always play automatch KGS on android, and I don't think it has that option (or at least couldn't find it).

Life In 19x19