https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/197...

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16. ... ?

I see nothing ungentlemanly in underpromoting, or anything humiliating about being underpromoted against. You could just as easily argue the opposite, that Larsen was ungentlemanly for not resigning in a position so bad that he could be underpromoted against. (See how silly that would sound?)

Black would not resign here...

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...so this happened. White has just played 151.Qd6-d1 checkmate.

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I have actually seen players online who would not resign under any circumstances, who then had the gall to complain that you weren't beating them quickly enough if you did stuff like this. Eliot Hearst defined Checkmate as "a self-inflicted torture by novices who don't know the meaning of the word "resigns"."

I remember once I had a tournament game where I contrived to win with the Two Bishops Mate. But I didn't underpromote, I made it look good. As Black I had two Bishops and two Pawns against a Bishop. So I played a pawn in such a way that White could sacrifice his Bishop for my two Pawns. He had to do it, and I then went on to win with K+B+B vs. K.

That was subtle, but one time that WASN'T subtle was in a High School tournament where I had a huge amount of material, something like 10 pieces and pawns, against a bare King. White still wouldn't resign, so I proceeded to give him all my pieces, except for one pawn, when I then Queened, and won with that. That's got to be more humiliating than a mere underpromotion, but he never resigned.

There is nothing one can do, there is no FIDE rule to say one must resign when lost and there have been some wonderful swindles. Hope springs eternal. But agree it can be frustrating.

What I like about this one is at first I thought Black joined in with White to set it up. But no. White went for it from around about move 120 and Black had no choice.

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From a 3 minute game. It ended 147. Rd2 Kb3 148. Rh2 Kb4 149. Rh1 Kb3 150. Qd6 Kc2 151. Qd1 mate.White had just a couple seconds left for the last 20 moves.

Yes, but we're discussing manners. I don't agree that it would have been ill-mannered for Spassky to underpromote (which I have literally never heard anyone claim about underpromotion before). I also don't think it was ill-mannered for Larsen not to resign.

Manners can be very subjective. For instance in the famous Donald Byrne vs. Fischer game, under normal circumstances it would be considered ill-mannered for Byrne to keep playing all the way to mate. This time nobody did. In fact, in the other famous Byrne-Fischer game, Fischer was unhappy that he DID resign.

When I was still in NY, some of the youth tournaments absolutely prohibited resignation. All games had to go to checkmate unless an absolute theoretical draw which had to be called by the arbiter since sometimes the kids did not even know that say K and B vs. K could not be won. I blame this on poor coaching, but frequently school programs were run by assigned teachers who really knew little about chess.

I've never seen a tournament where resignations were forbidden. Although I have seen club coaches telling their students not to do it, because they still might learn something from the game.

On the old Chess24 site, half the kibitzers were only there to slam the GM's. If the game was equal, they'd claim to be "bored", and wail "Why are they playing this out??" And if the game was unequal they'd wail "Why doesn't he resign???" It seemed like the last thing they ever wanted to do was actually watch a chess game. Whatever the position, it should already be over. I got so I wanted to be sure it was even possible to make someone happy before spending time trying to do it.

<One of the reasons for no resignation was the frequency of stalemates.>

That's a good reason not to resign at that level, but not a good reason to forbid it. If a kid resigns a game that he might have held, let his coach browbeat him for it.

<Kids considered it cool to have four or five queens after they had overwhelmed their opponents>

That's a lot cooler online, where you can actually have all those Queens. In an OTB game, you can turn two Rooks upside down if you're lucky, and if you want more Queens, you have to go scrounging around and try to borrow one.

I remember the first time I got a chess set that came with spare Queens, the first thing I did with it was to replay the Fischer-Petrosian 4 Queens game, and Game 11 of the Capablanca-Alekhine match.

Nothing wrong at all in under promoting. Spassky could have taken a Rook, understandable as the pictures of the event show no extra Queens on the side of the board like they are today at top events.

The arbiter probably brought a new Queen to the board. Ray Keene writes in Korchnoi vs Karpov, 1978 the Arbiter came across with a new Queen and Korchnoi asked him to have a Rook, Knight and Bishop ready as well. Karpov resigned. (page 104 Karpov - Korchnoi 1978)

Ray under promoted to a Bishop; ''..having two dark squared bishops in a rat defence appealed to my sense of humour."

In the 'Chess Olympiad Nice 1974 (Batsford, 1975) by Keene and Levy. Ray also added he promoted to a Bishop to test journalists to see what publications got it wrong and printed a Queen. Chess Monthly got it wrong.

An excellent thread that one. Ray and Lawrence Day, who was sitting on the next board to Ray both make wonderful insightful contributions.