Why don't people resign?

Why do people not resign when they are clearly losing?

I am talking about standard time chess.

PS: It says paste the game pgn and it won't allow me to paste the file directly, so I had to paste in the moves is there a quicker way to do it?

And this is just one example, I've had this happen several times in standard time (I am not talking about blitz or bullet games here).

Would you prefer another thread about Poker on a Chess site?

I am asking people, those who do not resign or those who may know the reason, why play on in a situation where you cannot win anymore (like in the game I posted)?

They saw the movie 300. 

There could be many reasons .

- The person thinks that (s)he will manage to draw the game somehow.(for eg - if you have a K and 2 Bs , he can try to play till the end cuz there's always the chance that your opponent doesn't know how to mate with a BLAH and a BLAH or a BLAH and a BLAH or 2 BLAHs

- (S)He thinks that he'll get his revenge by making you play till the end.(for eg - If your opponent is in a completely hopeless position and he hasn't resigned , then he probably thinks that he can get his revenge. But , this can be good for you . if you have enough time , then why not practice basic mates , espescially ( I hope the spelling's right) the knight and bishop mate.

-(S)he's a noob and doesn't know how to resign

-(S)he doesn't know the meaning of "resign"

-In blitz , (S)he can try to prolong the game so that you run outta time .

In the end, underlying all other reasons, it is because they do not value their time.

I must note, however, after looking at your game, that I would be sorely tempted to keep playing against anyone who made a habit of taking so many moves to convert a winning position.

This is one of the ultimate answers so far.

The "precious chess.com points" are given for posting comments and similar stuff. One needn't struggle not to lose a game for them. What's necessary is making yet another "Why don't people resign?" topic or posting a comment in one of them, as I am now doing.

Why not resign when you are losing?

1- Because I am playing a human player. Humans make blunders. 

2- You will learn something even if you lose the game. 

3- If the outcome will most likely be a loss then why not play to the end, it is your game, I don't have the obligation to resign.

4- It doesn't matter the way that you lose the game, but how well and how much efffort you put into the game. 

5- Number 1 should be more than reason enough NOT to resign. If you believe there is at least a slight possibility where a lapse in your opponent causes him to make a blunder then you should focus on defending the position to the best of your ability. This will teach you poise under fire. Many people quit when things don't go their way. 

I would say there was at least a slight possiblity however small that you have made a blunder, and at least the other side might still have a chance. 

Suppose that objectively that you were playing a lost position, would you resign and give up that soon or make your opponent prove to you that he is worthy of that point? Isn't much better when the opponent proves that he can turn that winning position into an actual win than just throwing the towel? Suppose it is a winning endgame position yet you don't know the mettle of your opponent's endgame technique. Would you still play on or resign?

Here are more reasons not to resign:

6. Resigning is demoralizing. When you know you needn't struggle to defend your position, you're going to be comfortable with allowing losses on a larger scale.

7. Your opponent has the "claim victory" button as well as you have the "resign" button. Or, rather unlike that, as it would be unnecessary to play if it were your opponent to choose when you should resign.

8. There are better ways to spend your time than thinking whether to resign or not, and resigning without thinking is worse than not playing at all.

9. When you resign, you're offending your opponent's ability to play the winning line.

10. When you don't resign, yet another "Why don't people resign?" topic will be able to spring up into life in the forum.

How about teaching them poise under fire? In many times, including Grandmaster level play, there is one side with a clearly losing position yet they choose to play on because however small there is a possibility, your opponent can make a mistake and you are back on the game. 

By having such mentality as just throwing the towel, I don't think it is good for a student of chess. IMO. Nobody is okay or fine with a losing position, yet it doesn't mean we should throw the towel at the first sign of trouble that things are not going our way. 

There is ambiguity with the phrase "I have a chance to win." There is a humanly understanding of this and a more theoretical one. Theoretically, any position can be saved, if it doesn't contradict the rules of chess, it's just that this chance might be some ridiculous one in a billion chance. Then there are chances that are bad but not unheard of, like a 1% chance of saving the game.

In general I think, when in doubt, just play a move. Even if it's a really bad move you can't do worse than lose. If you don't know whether your opponent is in a mood to play on in the position, whether or not psychologically he is ok, if you think he might or probably will know the winning plan but are not sure, just keep playing. What you don't want to do is give them the benefit of the doubt; you don't want to be hard at work for 5 minutes deciding whether to resign or not as you have nothing to lose by playing another move even if you don't know your chances of saving the position. Sometimes things don't turn out as expected... you might as well allow yourself to be on the benefiting side of such surprises.

I tell my son to resign if he's multiple pieces down against stronger players but not to resign if it's a weaker player.  He's very competitive however and he rarely resigns to anyone, no matter how hopeless the position or how strong the player.  He's had some miraculous draws (by stalemate) though when he hasn't resigned.  Once it was his bare king against a queen, a rook, a minor piece and several pawns.  His opponent (rated around 1500) recognized the possibility of a stalemate so he underpromoted a pawn to a rook, but that underpromotion resulted in an immediate stalemate anyway! I had to feel bad for the guy.

Don't feel bad for him. If he can't win with a queen, a rook, a minor piece and several pawns against a sole king, he shouldn't have expected that your son resign. He should have created a "Why don't people resign?" forum thread.

That's definitely not what I'm saying. I'm talking about your options after you made the blunder, not before. If you already made the blunder you don't have anything to lose. Before it, of course, you do.

I find it unlikely that anyone who loses most of the time when they are a piece down actually think they have a good chance winning a piece down. But that doesn't make it risky to play on if they already lost the piece.

people just don't for some reason.  Usually (Even in OBT matches) I just troll, them, promote all my pawns, and then checkmate them on move 49 (of 50 move rule) or let my clock run awhile.  I don't do this any more though.  I learned you just have to deal with it.  You WON the game right?  just be happy.

Ouch!  I tend to be minimalist when up so much material vs. a lone king.  Sometimes when playing against my nephew or granddad I'll pretend the other pawns and pieces don't exists and just do a typical rook and king vs. king or king and queen vs. king.  I also not bother taking pieces when far ahead unless it gets in the way of checkmate or just to simplify (I've given up a queen for a knight before then proceeded to do rook and king vs. king)

At least he learned a lesson.  If you're up really big, don't mess around.  Go straight for mate.  The pawn promotion was entirely unnecessary.  Maybe he wanted to punish my son for not resigning.

Wow...ok, maybe that guy I played was like you.

I also keep playing if one of us has very little time or there is a beautiful mate in a few moves or just want to see an interesting position played out a bit but in most circumstances it doesnt accomplish anything and I agree with Fiveofswords it's neither fun nor instructional to keep playing.
I do accept it if a person does not want to resign,  it is their choice but it can get a little boring.

Thanks for answers, I think I understand some of the reasoning of why some people do not resign although that reasoning doesn't make much sense to me!

Even if I knew I would win a few out of every 100 ''losing'' games in which I resigned, I would still rather resign and play a new game or analyse where I went wrong.