Can we stop conceding with one move to go?

[Grimwold]

This is just not analogous to a game of, let's say, "Earth" or "Viticulture", in which the end-game stats yield a lot of information that can be valuable to either player and also to the community.

And a lot of people just want to play game with zero interest for statistics.
And a lot of peoplee have limited time and so don't care to continue games where they have already lost.

[Jellby]

... and chess (on BGA) has statistics too.

[Fuchur]

Conceding exists in chess because the winning player can potentially decide to make the game go on forever, wiping out the opponent's board and then playing around with them indefinitely. That would definitely be poor sportsmanship and just a way to humiliate them, so chess comes with this ingrained rule that you can concede.

Most board games don't have a similar situation, they'll just naturally end as the game nears its completion, so in those cases conceding is useless. Also important to note that for most games, unlike chess, the option to concede is not part of the actual rules of the game, it's only an option given by BGA's implementation. So the situations are not comparable, conceding is part of chess culture whereas it feels unnatural in other games. In chess you can admire a final situation even if the checkmate isn't realized yet, there is a beauty in that. Although I'm still not sure why a chess player would want to concede one move away from their opponent's victory. Here again, it seems like a way to taint the opponent's victory and make it about them instead. So not a fan of conceding in chess either, although it's not as bad as in most games.

[Just to be clear, I am agreeing with you.]


In chess, conceding is an accepted and recognized tactic. The person conceding is saying, "I acknowledge your imminent checkmate, well done." There are no lost statistics, because chess doesn't have end-game statistics.

This is just not analogous to a game of, let's say, "Earth" or "Viticulture", in which the end-game stats yield a lot of information that can be valuable to either player and also to the community.

Sorry, can you explain which kind of statistics you need/get/analyse ?

And i don't agree that the winner in chess can generally clean the board.
Chess without clock :
There are situations where one player gains a huge advantage and will (without making a big mistake) be able to do that -- the actual checkmate might be many moves away (so conceding is the right thing to do).
In other cases one player is able to checkmate the other WITHOUT having an advantage otherwise -- he wouldn't be able to clean the board.
Usually chess is played with a clock : You win if the other one runs out of time -- no cleaning the board here either.
And finally chess knows a lot of situations where no one can win -- a draw.

[FrankJones]

... and chess (on BGA) has statistics too.

I realize this is subjective, btu those stats are not all that useful. "Number of times each piece was moved" is not a statistic I have ever heard anyone use or refer to in all my years playing and studying chess.

[nik592]

And a lot of peoplee have limited time and so don't care to continue games where they have already lost.

This thread (and I think most "anti-concede" comments in it) are about conceding in the final move (or maybe last few moves for some games) of the game. I'm really not clear how anyone can argue that to do so is a courtesy to the other player, and while I can see that doing so might save a minute of your life that you otherwise "wasted" on an already lost game, I still think it's a jerk move. Conceding earlier in games is a different thing, and more acceptable in my (and other's I think) opinion, although honestly, I've pretty rarely had an opponent concede because I'd obviously won. I usually assume they are conceding because they can't honour the time commitment anymore, because the games are typically too varied to be able to determine a result at a mid-point (occasionally yes it can happen, but generally, in a game of TM or Earth, you can't determine the winner with 40% of the game to go). And I'll accept that, even if I don't like it. The reason I don't like it is because I'm here to PLAY games, not too worried if I win or lose. I like to see how I did at a game, and I do look at the categories of scoring to see what I did well and where I maybe did less well but I probably care a bit more about that kind of thing when I don't win. But when someone concedes (or is booted actually), now I have to go and requeue for the game settings I want (which for some games can take days to meet), and that's frustrating.

[FDHenneberg]

I’ll abstain from a full quote, but I agree on nearly everything (I think mid game conceding often comes from a - maybe deceptive- feeling that there is no chance to win) you said, Nik.

I only brought up chess because one comment seemed to imply that people who concede are people who don’t care about others in general, no matter at which point of the game they concede.

With late conceding, yes, there’s not much to justify it, but the problem lies in the technical aspects, that has already been addressed by others in this thread: How to determine which turn will be the last one in a game like Pax Pamir? Percentages are a good idea, but many games would need a change in their code - CoB is on 80% in the last turn. I’m not sure how things work exactly on BGA but I gather that a viable solution would have to be one that can be easily applied to all games without needing any work by the developers of the games themselves, not one that needs loads of individual tweaking.

On a personal note, I do concede from time to time, never on the last turn, but maybe later than some of you like, for example early to mid Age III in 7WD. I do it only in the few games I play competitively (without being very good at them) in Arena. I think conceding is something that makes more sense in a competitive setting, where it is a fair assumption that someone getting some quick arena points isn’t that unhappy. At the same time, I wouldn’t really mind if conceding was impossible on BGA, aside from games that have it in their rules (like Through the Ages).

[RicardoRix]

This is just not analogous to a game of, let's say, "Earth" or "Viticulture", in which the end-game stats yield a lot of information that can be valuable to either player and also to the community.

And a lot of people just want to play game with zero interest for statistics.
And a lot of peoplee have limited time and so don't care to continue games where they have already lost.

This is very much a "me, me, me" statement.

You did agree at the start of the game to actually want to play the game all the way through. If you were winning you would still want to play I assume.
But now because you are losing, and it's simply in your own interest and without any consideration for the opponent it's too much trouble.
It's very close to the phrase 'throwing your toys out of the pram".

Any comparisons to chess are not relevant. The end score is not 1-0 and the result is not foreseen. The end game result matters.

Not directly relevant but worth noting, is that you will learn far more from the games you lose. These, if anything are the games you should want to see to the end.

[Grimwold]

And a lot of people just want to play game with zero interest for statistics.
And a lot of peoplee have limited time and so don't care to continue games where they have already lost.

This is very much a "me, me, me" statement.

Really.
Maybe ... But seems unlikely.
I assume you found a way to make a survey with people quitting to confirm that?
And since on must game I'm interested in statistic, I don't think I said that on my behalf.

Maybe my statement was more a 'not you, not you, not you' statement. Who knows.

You did agree at the start of the game to actually want to play the game all the way through. If you were winning you would still want to play I assume.

I did ?
No, that I can confirm you.
I almost never talk with my opponent, only answering when they have questions.
And I can confirm no one ever asked me "Do you agree to play the game to his very end" ?
I don't know where you got that desillusion, but never mind.

I play to win, in respect of opponents and rules. If I have 100% won, that win has to be recorded. I full OK to stop the game, you seem to assume that there is a 'forfeit button' that give win when used.

You seem to assume a lot of thing that are untrue.

When I 100%-won, the ball is in my opponent's hand. If they think their have to forfeit, so be it. If they think they have to continue, so be it. It is their choice, as it is MY choice when I 100 lost a game. If they leave ... I won. Score and stats doesn't matter and I win the elo I am supposed to win. End of story.

But now because you are losing, and it's simply in your own interest and without any consideration for the opponent it's too much trouble.
It's very close to the phrase 'throwing your toys out of the pram".

Again, you are assuming wrong. You are assuming I am you, which are not. You are giving your reason for a forfeit, which are not mine.
You don't know me, and you think you can gaslight me ... like seriously ?

Any comparisons to chess are not relevant. The end score is not 1-0 and the result is not foreseen. The end game result matters.
Not directly relevant but worth noting, is that you will learn far more from the games you lose. These, if anything are the games you should want to see to the end.

What no ... How ... No ...
In a game I hopelessly lost, the end has no interest, it's the beginning of the game that matter, it is that, that has to be reviewed, the ending is pointless.
And BGA replay works even after forfeit.


And please in the future, if you want to write about MY motivations for doing something, please have the basic decency to ask me first what they are. You are welcome.

[FrankJones]

To be fair, RicardoRix said "it sounds like a 'me me me' statement".

Which I interpreted as, "perhaps there are other interpretations, but that's how it comes across."

The statement being analyzed, if I am not mistaken, essentially comes down to, "One or two minutes of my time is more important than a possibly lengthy list of reasons why one or more people might benefit from having the end-game state shown and the end-game stats displayed." It also omplicitly is saying to the other person, "I don't care about the end-game state or the statistics, so it means nothing to me that you might care.

Which does sound like a "me me me" statement.

If someone legitimately cannot spare that one or two minutes, well, okay. But I doubt that is the case more than a tiny percentage of the time, if ever.

And in general, I believe it is to society's detriment if everyone were to take that approach.

With regard to agreeing to finish the game, I surmise RicardoRix was referring to the BGA code of conduct, which says a player should not "leave a game in progress on purpose". That's a bit hazy, but conceding, especially right at the end but just before the game actually ends, could be construed as "leaving a game in progress".

On a personal level, I perceive an agreement to play a game to have a built-in agreement to play the game to completion unless there is a good reason not to.

And, "I don't feel like wasting a minute or two of my life" is ... a reason - but, from my subjective vantage point, it is not a good reason, and I believe it would be viewed as poor sportsmanship if done in person, unless it is a situation like an imminent checkmate in chess in which it is customary to lay down the king when the opponent has a clear win. Even then, if the opponent said, "I didn't even realize I had a winning position, could we play a few more moves", I would have no objection.

On BGA, I can recall two galling examples of someone conceding right at the end.
1) The opponent was explicitly rude in the comments while doing so, and it was clearly poor sportsmanship based on what was said.
2) The opponent seemed to be in no rush, allowing me to play out my final turn even though the outcome was decided, and then with one more left (of mine; no further action was needed by the opponent), the opponent conceded. Finishing the game would have taken no extra time for the opponent. It was a real-time game that was 30 seconds away from being over, and if time were the issue, the concession could have been done a lot sooner rather than wasting both players' time and still not having a complete end-game state or statistics.

I've played many games, and in many of them, the outcome was clear before the final few turns, and yet both players finished the game. SO, on some level, there seems to be a societal understanding that finishing the game is part of good sportsmanship.

Which perhaps increases the extent to which it comes across as poor sportsmanship when the game is conceded right at the and.

[FrankJones]

Conceding exists in chess because the winning player can potentially decide to make the game go on forever, wiping out the opponent's board and then playing around with them indefinitely. That would definitely be poor sportsmanship and just a way to humiliate them, so chess comes with this ingrained rule that you can concede.

Most board games don't have a similar situation, they'll just naturally end as the game nears its completion, so in those cases conceding is useless. Also important to note that for most games, unlike chess, the option to concede is not part of the actual rules of the game, it's only an option given by BGA's implementation. So the situations are not comparable, conceding is part of chess culture whereas it feels unnatural in other games. In chess you can admire a final situation even if the checkmate isn't realized yet, there is a beauty in that. Although I'm still not sure why a chess player would want to concede one move away from their opponent's victory. Here again, it seems like a way to taint the opponent's victory and make it about them instead. So not a fan of conceding in chess either, although it's not as bad as in most games.

[Just to be clear, I am agreeing with you.]


In chess, conceding is an accepted and recognized tactic. The person conceding is saying, "I acknowledge your imminent checkmate, well done." There are no lost statistics, because chess doesn't have end-game statistics.

This is just not analogous to a game of, let's say, "Earth" or "Viticulture", in which the end-game stats yield a lot of information that can be valuable to either player and also to the community.

Sorry, can you explain which kind of statistics you need/get/analyse ?

And i don't agree that the winner in chess can generally clean the board.
Chess without clock :
There are situations where one player gains a huge advantage and will (without making a big mistake) be able to do that -- the actual checkmate might be many moves away (so conceding is the right thing to do).
In other cases one player is able to checkmate the other WITHOUT having an advantage otherwise -- he wouldn't be able to clean the board.
Usually chess is played with a clock : You win if the other one runs out of time -- no cleaning the board here either.
And finally chess knows a lot of situations where no one can win -- a draw.

I do not understand what you mean by "cleaning the board" in chess, a phase I am pretty sure I never used with regard to chess.

As to your question about statistics -

You really want me to list the hundreds of statistics that are shown at game end across the 15-16 games I play regularly?

Click on the statistics for any of the games in my profile, and you'll have your answer to that question.