When is the time right to resign?

I am amazed how many games I have been able to draw or even win when I was in such bad shape that it was torture to continue. If I am busted enough, I will resign. But I would rather resign too late than too early.

The time to resign is level-dependent. If you're Magnus Carlsen and are down a pawn with no compensation, you resign. At your level never resign, you'll learn more from losing outright.

You resign whenever you want to. It is certainly not disrespectful to not resign, especially against a low-ranked player.

I pretty much only resign in correspondence because a basic mate will take days and that's unnecessary for both of us. If it's a blitz or bullet or classical game online there's pretty much no reason to resign. If it's a blunder in the early or middle game you have decent odds your opponent (who should be of a similar skill level) will make a similar mistake, and if it's endgame why bother resigning when you're only saving yourself 30 seconds?

#13 I agree with this. I don't feel it's ever disrespectful to play on in a bad/lost position. Why should the losing player feel obliged to make it easy for his/her opponent?

If you play on and you indeed lose, then so be it. If you play on and your opponent screws up, is it really legit for the claim to be made "I would've won that game had you resigned 'respectfully'".

I say make your opponent earn it if you want, but don't have the attitude that it's bad taste to play on. I've personally never been insulted by somebody refusing to resign, ever.

I still find it sort of annoying and insulting when both me and my opponent have more than 5 minutes and its king+queen vs king and I have to mate the opponent that is a little ridiculous.

#16, I see your point, 15 seconds of your life wasted right? /s

Seriously though, I've been in that losing position before and got a stalemate out of it (I've also been in that winning position and stalemated -- man was I angry).

There's no golden rule. One should consider:

-chances of success, counterplay
-remaining time
-complexity of the position
-playing strength of the opponent

So, playing on with the lone king against a bunch of pieces versus a grandmaster who has plenty of time is utterly idiotic. Better start a new game!

OP- I kind of think that players at our level should never resign. I have a very large number (relative to other players on the site) number of stalemates from terrible awful positions. I have stalemated players of my level or higher even in simple queen-king v king checkmate scenarios. Even if "disrespectful" in some sense, I learn a little about positioning every time. I have also won the odd game in a totally lost position. Your question is obviously subjective and you'll get some different opinions, but rest assured that resigning means you will miss the odd draw and even rarer but occasional wins.

Here's a stalemate against a highly rated player: en.lichess.org/VWwOrnCcsHlU

And here's one where I 1900 player failed to mate with queen, queen and king v king:

en.lichess.org/NcSQ8oCYHd9Q