I always let my opponent deliver the mate if it's forced, I think it is stupid to resign when you're being mated. I feel resigning should be used as a gesture to your opponent in a position that is clearly lost, but takes a while to convert. When you're about to be mated in like 3 moves, why not just let him deliver the mate in 3 seconds instead of resigning? When someone resigns when facing a nice sacrifice with unavoidable mate I die a little inside. Ofcourse if it could be prevented resulting in a loss of major material, then resiging is fine, even though I still prefer just letting the opponent execute the mate. I might be a nit though.

Exactly. There are few things in chess that annoy me more than when a player plays on much too long in an absolutely lost position but resigns one move before checkmate. If he plays this long he should at least give his opponent the satisfaction of mating, otherwise it's just bad etiquette.

For example in the game Byrne-Fischer, I have always loved how Byrne allows Fischer to drive him from h2 to b1 and mate him there. It's all forced so Byrne could have resigned, but playing it out was a nice gesture imo.

i don't like if my opponent allows mate because i never know what to say after i mated him. IMO it's much less awkward if he just resigns one move earlier.

Make your move. Stop the clock.

Slight pause. If no eye contact:

"Checkmate"

Otherwise, it's unnecessary.

Extend hand.

*

I'm with the "if there's forced mater, then play it out" camp. I don't mind a long think as the result of "shock" before resigning. But once the shock is over, there's no reason to take 10 minutes per move when there's only one legal move on the board...either resign, or move with alacrity.

where do you guys play chess tornaments? i usually play on facebook app chess, i think its also chess.com, im not sure.

Either in hotels or chess clubs

I played my most recent one in the local carpenter's union hall.

yeah I believe the facebook app is teh same as chess.com - you should join our team two4you8!

US Open class champion. 2 games published in tournament bulletin, one a short Evans gambit.

You didn't clarify if this was your best or your worst performance. I'm guessing the latter?

I found my old score sheets from my high school days! Is that enough justification to bump a three year old thread? I'm going to say yes.

Round four (versus the Douche):

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=94998

Round five (the Big Upset!!!):

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=94999

(By the way, how many inexperienced Class E players play 32. Rxe6?? in that position?)

During my sophmore year in college, the university chess club sponsored a rated tournament. Only 3 other people showed up because it was scheduled during a much bigger chess event nearby. So we had a 3 game round robin and I was rated ~1100 USCF at the time with the other players being all at least 2-3 times my age.

The first game, I beat a 1494 as black, and rather convincingly. 2nd game drew an ~1800+ in a Silcian. He was so disappointed in the result that I felt pretty badly for him. In the final game, I lost to a ~2100+ expert where we blitzed out the first 21 moves of the two knights defense, my pet opening at the time from both sides. Of course once I got out of book (and the literal book too as I had then memorized all lines of the two knights in the MCO chess encyclopedia), I quickly crumbled.

I knew I could never top this perfomance and so this became my last live tournament, ending 2 years of studying chess. I'm guessing this story is less common than others in that it was an outperformance that ending my chess "career" rather than a poor performance.

What ended your career? Did other things in life get in the way, or did you lose interest?

7th grade tournament as part of the school chess team. Played 1-2 matches, did okay, but was getting bored. Had my friend's cousin take my place at my next match. He didn't know how to play so he just copied whatever his opponent did and pissed him off. He ended up losing and I'm pretty sure I got disqualified for an unauthorized substitution.

Sometimes I venture into forums besides politics/sports/oot and learn things like BJJ plays chess.

This can't be too much of a surprise, can it?

Oops, I had no idea about BJJ's activity in Politics / Sports / OTT

The sports, at least, should have been a given from my avatars, right?

True that, but I browse 2+2 with avatars switched off (which is possible under 'My 2+2' -> 'Edit Options'; and I'm glad that, unlike some other forums, 2+2 provides such an opportunity with no need to tell the browser to hide all images, which would result in some inconvenience with using the post editor).

How do youknow Whois posting without avatars???

I actually read posters' nicknames. My spectacles are yet helpful enough for this purpose

this confused me for a sec

What's goin on in here!?!?!?!?

I guess not. I just kind of assumed no one who posed in the same forums as me posted in any of the other forums.

Damn yo. Assumptions abound.