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This question is about all e-sports in general.

Has there ever been a game where a player concedes when they're winning, because they misevaluated the position? (I exclude situations where the player concedes for a better tournament bracket, for friendship reasons, etc.)

I'm aware similar things have happened in chess, but am not aware of any game in any e-sport in which this happened.

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This isn't an extremely rare occurrence in StarCraft, where gauging the status of your opponent can be difficult.

One of the more famous examples is in this clip from MLG Dallas 2011: IdrA (Zerg) vs. HuK (Protoss), where a ground-bound Protoss army creates a number of hallucinated (deal no damage, take extra damage, timed life) Void Rays to threaten an oncoming Zerg army heavy in Brood Lords, leading the Zerg to concede.

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  • Ah... Classic IdrA.
    – Spevacus
    Commented Feb 16 at 16:48
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    Was IdrA winning, or was the game still even at the time?
    – Allure
    Commented Feb 18 at 13:48
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    To my eye it looks like IdrA is ahead, and the casters seem to agree. His main army appears to be stronger, and more likely to win a head-to-head engagement, while he simultaneously has zerglings in the opponent's base dealing damage and seemingly more production available in the event the armies fight to a draw.
    – Sconibulus
    Commented Feb 19 at 20:18
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The hallucinated void ray example is the first one to come to mind; it's an effective example since it seems like a desperation play. If IdrA doesn't quit, it's a waste of energy resources for those units.

Here's another similar example where IdrA quits what may have been a winning game because of incomplete information. Here, IdrA had no way of knowing (or reason to think) that MMA had destroyed his own command center at the gold mineral patch, causing a huge swing in economy.

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  • Why did IdrA quit if he didn't know that MMA destroyed his own command center? What mistake did he make in evaluating the game state?
    – galacticninja
    Commented Feb 22 at 7:51
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    And why did MMA destroy his own command center?
    – Negdo
    Commented Feb 22 at 12:42
  • The "Destroy your own command center" is super odd. There's no self-destruct button so he would've had to spend units attacking his own building.
    – Nelson
    Commented Feb 23 at 1:18
  • reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/hs8dl/comment/c1y1i3x/… He did accidentally shoot his CC with siege tanks when he was trying to blow up rocks.
    – Nelson
    Commented Feb 23 at 1:21

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