Originally posted by Darion
It's polite to resign when a game is hopeless out of consideration for the winning player. I would do something similar to this quite a bit when I played chess regularly, as resignation is a pretty big part of etiquette. Call it mean if the wife makes you, but negative reinforcement is how people learn things.
Chess is one of the few times where resignation is part of the game.

I once read a funny definition of the checkmate. I think it was Alekhine who defined it as "self inflicted torture by novices who don't know the word 'resign'". Maybe it wasn't him. I don't know if he ever really had much of a sense of humour.

I have noticed that people will pull themselves out of a golf tournament but with so many people it's not like you are giving up and letting the other person win.

Tennis has some resignations but those usually come with some claim of injury.