About the manner of victory, I make an example from the game of go, which being points based makes this case more straightforward to evaluate. In go it's either

About the manner of victory, I make an example from the game of go, which being points based makes this case more straightforward to evaluate. In go it's either win or loss, there is no draw. You can win by one point or by one hundred and you still score only one point in the tournament table. Why is that? Because if you count to be losing by five points you could either resign (I'm assuming a game between strong players) or start playing more adventurous moves to turn the game around. Adventurous moves usually make for a larger win, let's say fifty points. Should players be punished for that and only play games that minimize the difference between the scores of the players? How boring. I guess this applies also to chess. Sacrifice, sacrifice, win. Or sacrifice, sacrifice, mistake, loss. I won't punish a mistake so much more than any other one.