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When to concede


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I find the suggestions that a team should consider anyone else except themselves very strange. If I am a lot down, and I want to concede, I think I should be allowed to. If I am a lot down, and I don't want to concede, I think I should be allowed to play on. I really don't think all this discussion about being "unfair to the field" or "helping people by giving them a rest" is at all relevant. It's my team, my match and my decision. (OK, my team's decision. In a team of more than 4 we once got to the last set and 2 people wanted to concede but 4 didn't, so guess who played the last set...)

 

As for "how much" that depends on how many boards are left (obviously), but also on other things such as how well we are playing, how good we think we are relative to the opponents (there are people against whom I think 60 imps in 8 boards is possible and those against whom it isn't), what the event is, how late it is, whether I have to be up early the next morning....

 

Certainly I've played matches where opponents have said, roughly, " we know we're going to lose but we'd like to play on to get our money/journey's worth" which is fine by me (unless it's 1am).

 

English events tend to be in 8-board sets so I have most experience with these, and I think that with 8 boards to play

 

- anything up to 50 imps I am likely to play on, that sort of amount is possible even against a good team if you go all out to try and get it back (certainly I've had multiple sets of +/- 45 imps or so)

 

- anything above, say, 65 imps and I'm going to give in unless opponents are completely clueless (but why am I 65 down against clueless opponents?)

 

- at aggregate, the margin has to be enormous before I concede. One grand slam swing is 2310 points and that's only board.

 

Times concessions (or lack thereof) have surprised me:

 

- we were 120 up with 8 to play and about to miss the last train back home because oppo were so slow, but they still insisted on playing. We played speedball and just made it...

 

- opponents in the GC wanted to concede after 24 boards of a 48-board match at only about 50 down. OK, they were a very weak team and were obviously going to lose... but why had they bothered entering if they didn't actually want to play just for the fun of it?

 

- opponents in a league match, victory pointed, who wanted to concede half way through (we persuaded them not to)

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