Life In 19x19

I was Black and about 12 pts behind; but I hanged in there until ...

While it can come across as unsportsmanlike to hang in until the opponent misses out on an atari due to shortage of liberties after filling neutral points ... it's not bad to have a learning phase where you don't resign.

1) It will teach you about these damezumari, both yours and your opponent's.
2) You will understand the game is far from over after a setback and there are genuine opportunities to come back, on top of the feeble damezumari ones.
3) Hence you will develop fighting spirit
4) You will be not as upset when later encountering an opponent who doesn't resign: you will acknowledge the behavior and probably even respect it.
5) And develop concentration and mental strength

When that's done, you can still resign, at the right time in the game and in your career.

But what happened next?

Probably White resigned?

Or played it out? Sort of a side topic but pros and strong players will resign based on deep reading. They know what's going to happen in 20, 50, 100+ moves. But even a kyu player can know when a game is hopeless or can read out a sequence such as this.

But for me, I sort of like the "satisfaction" of a conclusion. Especially something like a snapback, but even just playing out a failed connection back to another group without any actual capture. And so I'm willing to just play things out to also give my opponent, and the game, the conclusion. They know what's going to happen. I know what's going to happen. But the game doesn't know. Why spend so much time building this game-state just to deprive the game of it's conclusion.

I think some people don't want to play out their blunder? But hasn't the blunder already been made? Or maybe it's like eating pizza crust -- it's not the best part of the pizza, its just carbs. I get why some people don't eat it. But seems a bit sad for the pizza. A bit wasteful.

CDavis7M wrote:Or played it out?

I would hope so. Especially at this level of players when it is unclear that both (or either) will play correctly.

Black correctly judged that there was something still unresolved where one or the other side could make a game changing mistake.

That's why I will ask again, what happened next. If white did simply resign (instead of connecting) that would be the premature resign error we are discussing. Yes, strong p;ayers can correctly read out the semai. But can players of this level?

How do you know the level of the players? It's not indicated anywhere.

jlt wrote:How do you know the level of the players? It's not indicated anywhere.

If that were being presented as a life or death problem, for what level of player do you think it would be for?

I'd say 12k... But it's not a book problem, more likely a blinder by White.

Isn't that the point of of the topic "never resign". At this level. Not until there aren't remaining things to be played out where blunders during that process could change the outcome.

That's why I asked "well what happened next?"

The tag to be used is "sgf", and not "sgf-problem".

[quote="jlt"]The tag to be used is "sgf", and not "sgf-problem".

Thanks for the fix, I am new to this tag.