Unnecessary Moves Just to Torment?

A player in another forum topic made the comment that, in his experience, opponents will make unnecessary moves just to torment his or her rival.  He said this "happens a lot in online chess".  

This is not my experience, and I don't know if I've run across a single instance of it in over 4000 games.  Every opponent I've encounter seems completely motivated to dispatch me as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Is my experience unusual, or perception faulty about this?  I mean, are there players out there who delay chalking up a win just for the sheer pleasure of making the other player "suffer"?

Yep, there are those out there that if they know they have the advantage will sometimes go for wiping out all of your pieces just because they can, or for getting as many queens as possible. Quite often when this happens they make a mistake and if you are unable to gain back the advantage could also lead to a stalemate and then they feel like an idiot because they were beating you.

@Avengerki > Guilty as charged. I am one of those that will get 4 queens if they can. Why? Because if my opponent does not want to resign, then everything is fair game. Resign and let's play another game instead of wasting both of our time :)

Resigning is the answer, of course, or at least from one side of the equation.  Perhaps that is why I haven't experienced this phenomenon.  I will say that early in my participation in chess.com I would have players "yelling" at me to give it up.  I don't think I was foolishly prolonging the game even back then, and just had the misfortune to run into some bad sports early on.  I will say that I am often tempted to advance every pawn I have in certain games where the opponent is holding on for what seems like an unreasonable amount of time (or slows down to a crawl when the outcome is obvious), but I'm just glad to rid myself of the other person's company in these instances.

I know a chess-teacher who does this and even tells me to do it aswell.

It's not even just "unneccessary moves". It's more like willingly playing bad moves that reduce the advantage but keep it just up enough to not lose/draw.

When asked why he did that, he actually replied: "Um dich zu quälen!" ("In order to torment you!")

Those who don't resign when clearly lost annoy me. It's time wasting.

When opponents do not resign lost positions, I consider them to have said, "I am enjoying the game so much that I do not wish to quit." Out of respect for my opponent, I honour their desire by delaying checkmate as long as possible.

If your opponent is able to do this in the current position, it's a sign you should have resigned already.

I hold out just to try and get the stalemate. What better feeling than knowing your opponent has every possible advantage but you can still out think them to at least get a draw.

I don't mind nnecessary moves from an opponent in a losing position if I'm going to checkmate them. I enjoy working out the checkmate. It's their choice to continue the game. 

You never know if someone will timeout..Sometimes I'll hang in there just for that reason.

Yes MikeScott4, because your rating is SO important.

This attitude is the reason why I sometimes prolong the game by making multiple queens. By not resigning, you’re sending the message that you think your opponent might blunder away such an easily won position. It’s insulting. 

The people who make as many wueens as possible if their opponent resign are dumb in my opinion.

a)No matter how I loose I take it as a loss.I try not to resign.If I am pummeled by 9 queens it is the same as loosing with almost equal material so I don't care.

b)If he wants the game to end soon why does he/she have to extend it??

c)They are just increasing the probability that the position becomes a stalemate.

Everyone makes blunders.It might be due to a mouse slip too.

quantum tunelling tells us there is a 0.0001% chance that he will win too!

that is probably by time out or server error.

In all the online games I've ever played I think this has happened once. Some knucklehead thought it was funny to make about 4 or 5 queens after I was clearly lost and then send taunting kibitz messages about how his king had a whole harem of queens. I thought it was amusing rather than tormenting though, as I was forcing him to waste his time playing it out anyway.

that

Did you read his post?

The person asked "are there players out there who delay chalking up a win just for the sheer pleasure of making the other player "suffer"?

and he replied

I would assume that they're tormenting you for not resigning. 

But the thing is, for your opponent to be able to play clearly sub-optimal moves and still win, and for you to be AWARE that they're playing sub-optimal moves just because it doesn't jeopardize the result, means that you're extremely lost and you know it.

Which suggests that you should probably resign. I don't see how their decision to prolong the game while winning can possibly be worse than your decision to prolong the game while losing. 

So I think someone complaining about this has only their own behavior to blame. 

i love the fact that chess.com literally insults you in game review if you play 1.f3 e4 2.Kf2
text reads: You are clearly trying to taunt your opponent - and you should lose because of your hubris!