Think Before You Resign!

I’m not an advocate of playing on in hopeless positions, but before resigning you should make sure your position really is lost and beyond hope! In the following position I had just played 10…Nf6xd5 and after a moment’s thought White resigned; he believed he was losing the N on g5.

 

Had he taken a little longer to consider the position he might have realized that after 11.exd5 Bxg5 12.Bxg5 Qxg5 13.f4 Qh6 14.fxe5 dxe5 that, while it’s true he’s down two P’s, his position is not totally hopeless…yet.

Even worse was the following position where I have just played 15.Nd4xc6 against an FIDE Master. He resigned thinking that after 15…bxc6 16.Qxc6+ he would be down a R, which is quite true and so resignation was in order. However a spectator immediately pointed out that after 15…Qc7 16.Nd4 he’s only down a P. True, his position isn’t very good, but it’s not yet time to resign.