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How to play with people who are better than you

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Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#21

Post by narag »

ycombinete wrote: post #16
dorkwood wrote: post #3

I never liked the idea of explicitly changing the rules in order to make a game more fair for new players. If you become accustomed to changing the rules whenever you find yourself outmatched, and then find yourself in a situation where the rules can't be changed for whatever reason, then you're not going to enjoy yourself. It's much more enjoyable for everyone, in my opinion, to play by the same rules as the group,…

When I started playing squash, my only opponent was an ex-league player. The two of us kept a mental log of my highest score against him, which steadily increased as I got better, and he showed me where I was going wrong. Over the next year I didn’t beat him once, but occasionally would best my previous high score, which was always exhilarating, until about a year an a half later were we’re on equal footing, and I co…

A 600 ELO point difference in chess basically means you will never win, and it becomes futile, and crushing.

But after losing a dozen times with that guy, you play against someone else and it's you that crush your opponent, so not so futile.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#23

Post by onion2k »

narag wrote: post #19
dragontamer wrote: post #4

Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're better than you and keep losing. Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on your skill. Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty…

I learned chess playing always against a friend that won every single time. I didn't give up. I joined a club and improved. After some months I played again with my friend and I won. That was the last game he played against me. Moral? Not sure. I like to win sometimes, but I don't mind losing most times if that teachs me something. Playing against someone much better than you sharpens your perception, reactions, ever…

By the sound of it your intent was to win eventually. You could imagine winning, and with some effort you did win. I think that's subtly different to playing against people who you will never beat regardless of how much effort you put in.

dragontamer's example of Magnus Carlsen is a good one - he was in the top 1000 players in the world when he was 12, and become World Champion at 22. He's intuitively good at chess. The match he played to become World Champion the first time was fascinating because as soon as he could get to the point where the game was outside of what Vishy Anand had experience of he was pretty unstoppable. He's not someone normal players will ever beat. I think most chess players would like to play him because he's famous, but if you met someone unknown with the same level of ability most people just wouldn't play them except to learn. Few people would want to play that sort of person for fun. It just wouldn't be very enjoyable.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#24

Post by jstummbillig »

dragontamer wrote: post #4

Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're better than you and keep losing. Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on your skill. Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty…

> My inability to defeat the greatest players of a subject does NOT make the game less appealing

Yes, it does. To them.

Anyone who is driven to get better at a game will be bored with playing with or against clearly worse players very quickly.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#25

Post by dspillett »

jstummbillig wrote: post #24
dragontamer wrote: post #4

Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're better than you and keep losing. Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on your skill. Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty…

> My inability to defeat the greatest players of a subject does NOT make the game less appealing Yes, it does. To them. Anyone who is driven to get better at a game will be bored with playing with or against clearly worse players very quickly.

If they are to snooty to play with those with less experience/skill to help them learn the game, and to help the joy of their game spread, then that is their problem. Let them stew in the boredom of only ever playing against the few they consider worthy while the rest of us have a good time!

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#26

Post by sparsely »

Bananagrams is a word game based on scrabble which has a really elegant catch up mechanic which comes so naturally out of the rules you barely notice. If you are behind you will tend to have more free tiles which don't require large rearrangements, making it easier to see new words. (This breaks down slightly with big skill differences or if you are way way behind but in most cases works perfectly)

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#27

Post by Tepix »

This is an interesting topic that came up recently. I like playing the board game Othello. Whenever I get the chance I will try to teach people the game.

I don't let them win. I of course tell them what good moves are (and why). Perhaps I should lose on purpose to get them hooked?

PS: One of the cool aspects of Othello is that it looks like if both players play a perfect game, it ends in a draw.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#28

Post by pyrale »

igor47 wrote: post #2

the author is focused on finite games, which are games that you play to win. but it's interesting to think about applying the same logic to infinite games, where the goal is to keep playing forever. For instance, capitalism is a game that most players assume we'll just keep playing. How do you deal with some players having an advantage? Currently, the advantage only compounds (literally, ie compound interest). What i…

Life is not a game, and capitalism is not consensual like playing a game is.

I don't believe, for instance, that farmers suiciding after losing their farm should be likened to sore losers.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#29

Post by mjfl »

People who can't play games against people who are better than them are over-competitive and lazy! It's more fun when you play against skilled players, you learn more! I've never understood that personality trait, and I love losing at Dominion!
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