(Sam Sloan) wrote in message ...
Some years ago I was playing in a non-rated team match. The opposing
team consisted of scholastic players. I was recruited to play first
board for the Lynchburg team because our team was short one player.

I played a nice combination and won a piece in the opening. I was
thinking about having the game published. However, my opponent refused
to resign. He just kept playing. Finally, I was two rooks up and still
he refused to resign. By now, the game was so long that no chess
magazine would ever publish it. I got mad and started to get angry
with my opponent. Finally, I won his queen too. Then, he resigned. By
then the game had dragged on for 40 moves and was far too long to be
published.

I complained to his coach (his team had a professional coach who was a
well known chess master) about the fact that his player had refused to
resign even though he was two rooks down. The coach explained that he
had told his team players not to resign unless they were at least a
queen down. This explained why he had not resigned when he was two
rooks down but did resign when I won his queen.

In this match, we had to play two games. I got so mad about this that
I played carelessly in the second game and lost.

Sam Sloan
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That is what many scholastic chess coaches instruct their kids for
scholastic tournaments, especially those with shorter time controls;
the reason being that every 1/2 pt. can help in the team standings,
and as long as the player has a queen on the board against another
scholastic opponent, he/she may be able to force perpetual check or
otherwise secure a draw. In my opinion, such an instruction should not
be given in a tournament that includes adult players, nor should it be
given in the higher levels of scholastics (i.e. players rated @ 1200 -
2200+).

Kiddon