Tony-- I HATE it when an opponent plays on in an obviously lost position. Sometimes amng friends, we will do so just to goof around and to continue the conversation thread, maybe even placing stones in silly places on the edge of the board for a laugh. But otherwise, I just find it a pain. I think a good time to resign in pente is when the other player has an open 4 (with no interrupting captures) or has just threatened a 5th capture that cannot be defended. Why play on at that point? There are only two reasons: 1) hope that the opponent times out or 2) make a 4 of your own somewhere and hope that your opponent forgets what was happening in the game and forgets that he just made a game winning open 4.

Either way, I think the sportsmanlike thing to do is to simply resign, say "good game," and move on.

Of course, there may be an exception-- if you find yourself in a lost position that you are ONLY in because you made a careless error yourself in a game that you woul have otherwise won, then of course you will probably want to play it out until the final moment to see if your opponent accidentally returns the favor with a similar error.

There are two things you can do:

1) Along the lines of what Harley said-- when you have a clear forced win, say "Good game" to your opponent and maybe he wil get the idea and resign. You cna even explain (politely) your forced win.

Drawback-- what if you are wrong and are overlooking soemthing? You will look like a fool, and worse, your opponent might think you were actually trying to pull the wool over his eyes!

2) If you have a forced win and the opponent is dragging the game out needlesly, you can do the same back at him! Keep taking captures to really turen it into an ass-whopping, or keep making trias and other threats, passing up winning moves as long as you cna drag it out, and then maybe next time the player will resign with some dignity.

But-- another possibility-- a beginning player might not see a forced win by his opponent as early as the opponent sees it; that is something else to keep in mind.

There is really only one thing that truly upsets me, that I consider completely unacceptable--

If the opponents says to you "Well, good game, you got me, I have lost, well played, I can't stop you now, etc. etc. etc.," BUT then instead of resigning or just playing at A1 or T19 (which players often do as a means of showing they are giving up), the player will instead make a meaningless 4 of his own somewhere on the board. I hate that. One should not talk up his opponent as if the game were over and then try something sneaky like that.

Either 1) Just make your own 4 somewhere and don't say anything, or 2) congratulate him and resign.

But please, don't make a big deal out of congratulating someone as if you are accepting defeat only to try to get him off guard and miss your meaningless threat. I think that is extremely poor game ettiquette, and also a very cheap tactic.