Ok, ok. I'll let you in on the secret: "playing to win" at all times is counter-productive. If you want to win over the long-term, then you can't play every single game as if it were a tournament finals. If you did you wouldn't have time for basic R&D, you'd never learn the quirky nuances that show up unexpectedly at tournaments, and you are likely to get stuck honing sub-optimal tactics.

Basic R&D

Playing to win and playing to learn are often at odds. If you play the game at hand to maximize you chances of winning, then you won't take the unnecessary risks of trying out new tactics, counters, moves, patterns, or whatever. Playing it straight is the best way to win the game at hand, but at the cost of valuable information about the game that you may need later, and valuable practice to expand your narrow repertoire of moves or tactics.

Here's a simple example from Street Fighter. Let's say I know for a fact that one split second from now my opponent will do a particular "super move." To win the game at hand, the smartest thing to do is just block the move, but that doesn't teach me a whole lot. How invulnerable is his super move, anyway? Could I have stuck out an early kick that would knock him out of his super? Or could I have waited for the "super flash" to happen (signifying the beginning of his super move) and then done an invulnerable dragon punch 1 frame later? Maybe my invulnerability will last longer than his and I'll knock him out of it. Maybe his will always win. That's valuable information to have for the time when you have zero energy and the opponent forces you to block the super move and die. This situation will happen in the tournament, so you better know what your options are.

Very often in "casual play" I will forgo the safe option in order to try possible counters to certain moves. Even if I lose a game when a possible counter turns out not to work, the knowledge gained is well worth it, since I'll never make that particular mistake again (I hope!). If you really want to play to win, you have to know all the options open to you at every moment, and that doesn't happen without a lot of disastrous experiments.

This concept applies to pretty much any game, of course. "Will my 6 corsairs really beat his 12 mutalisks in StarCraft?" Or, "I know I have the flak cannon, but will the shock rifle combo work just as well around corners in Unreal Tournament?" You will never know unless you try it.

Honing Sub-optimal Tactics

Early in a game's life, players have not yet figured out which strategies and tactics are actually the best--though many players will claim to know all. Those players may very well know better tactics than other players of their time, but games evolve. New things are discovered that obsolete old tactics. Usually, radically different and better tactics are discovered that put the old ones to shame. Sometimes, new counters are discovered that can entirely defeat the old "best" tactics. In a fighting game, you also have the concept of figuring out which characters are the best. It can take months (or years!) for players to figure out that character X, though widely thought to suck, is actually able to abuse bug/feature Y in such a way as to be nearly unbeatable.

So how does all this relate to playing to win? The hardcore "Play to Win" player will choose his one character, his set of powerful tactics, and hone them to perfection over time. He'll know all the tricks for that character to perform those tactics. For example, in the fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom 1, he might pick Mega-man and learn the "rock ball trap." This a pattern of attack where mega man creates a soccer ball ("rock ball" in Japan), kicks it diagonally across the screen, then fires one blue projectile in the air, then one on the ground. That's 3 projectiles total controlling the play field. While the opponent deals with that, Mega-man has time to summon another soccer ball and repeat the pattern.

A serious Mega-man player will learn the rock ball trap variations needed against Chun Li, the different variations needed against Venom, and so on. Other players will find tricks to negate the usefulness of the rock ball trap in general, then the Mega-man player will find the counter-tricks that allows him to keep the pattern going. This will feel a lot like "Playing to Win," but in the end, this player will do precious little winning. He will have mastered a sub-optimal tactic that in the end is not bad, but isn't 1/10^th as good as other things that other characters can do.

I think of a game as a topological landscape with lots of hills and peaks that represent different tactics/strategies/characters. The higher the peak, the more effective that strategy is. Over time, players explore this landscape, discover more and more the hills and peaks, and climb to higher locations on the known hills and peaks. Players can't really add height to these peaks; they are only exploring what's there. The problem is, when you reach the base of a new peak (say, the rock ball trap peak), it can be very hard to know that the pinnacle isn't very high. It might be really difficult to climb (lots of nuances to learn to do the trap), but in the end, the effectiveness of the tactic is low compared to the monstrous mountains that are out there. You have reached a local maximum, and would do better to exploring for new mountains.

In other words, playing to win involves exploring. It involves trying several different approaches in a game to see which you are best at, which other players are best at, and which you think will end up being the most effective in the end. When you are perfecting your rock ball trap (your best chance of winning at the time), you have to realize that "playing to win" might actually involve taking up a new character you know nothing about--a character that you will eventually play 10 times better than you could ever dream of playing Mega-man.

Learning Secret Lore

Tournament play often creates critical moments of decision when you are exposed to a very strange situation in the game. In a tournament, the best players get to play each other, often with a clash of play-styles. They each have their own tricks and must find immediate answers to the tricks of their opponents. And it's not just for fun anymore, it's "real." It matters. Under this pressure players find creative and unusual solutions to they tricky spots they get put into.

When these strange situations come up, will you be familiar with them? Do you know the options and the risks involved? Knowledge of "secret lore" or unusual interactions in a game often means the difference between winning and losing.

And how will you learn this secret lore? Perhaps you are preparing for a tournament, practicing, playing to win. What will you practice? You'll practice the things you know you need to do the most in a match. You'll practice against the things that you know you'll face? Basically, you'll do it all "by the book." Consciously preparing for a tournament is pretty much the opposite of exploring "unusual situations." In your practicing, will you seek out a player of a character you think sucks? Will you play characters you have no intention of playing in the tournament? Probably not. But what happens when a mysterious player out of nowhere shows up with that "sucky" character, and shows everyone how good that character really is? That other character you were messing around with might be just the thing you need--too bad you didn't explore that. You were "playing to win."

The Karmic justice of it all is that love of the game really does count for something. Those who love the game play it to play it. They mess around. They pick strange characters, try strange tactics, face others who do the same, and they learn the secret knowledge. Those who play only to win can't be bothered with any of that. Every minute they spend playing goes toward climbing their current peak, attaining their local maximum. Perhaps they don't even like the game enough to be bothered with anything except the most mainstream character and the most mainstream tactic with that character.

I practiced pretty hard for a tournament in Super Turbo Street Fighter that occurred on August 9^th-11^th 2001. Before the tournament, I decided to play only Dhalsim and to practice him a lot against whoever I could. I also happen to actually like the game, and I'd sometimes mess around with my "fun characters" of Honda and Ryu, and occasionally with my "professional" character: Bison. Dhalsim was my focus, though.

When the actual tournament came around, I would have never guessed what it all came down to. My Dhalsim did well, and it came time for me to face a well-known Japanese player who plays T-Hawk. T-Hawk is known to be terrible, especially against Dhalsim, but this was a prime example of a player who could work magic with a "sucky" character. After one game, my Dhalsim was utterly destroyed, and I needed a change of plans. I figured that my "casual play" Honda would do well, since I could sit and do nothing the entire game and be safe from T-Hawk. If he ever got near, I could head-butt and knock him away, then sit and do nothing. (See my article on The Art of War: The Sheathed Sword.) Anyway, my performance, a true exhibition of stubbornness and boringness in tournament play, paid off. I defeated the Japanese player in an utterly ridiculous character matchup that no one would ever predict actually happening in a tournament. I went on to lose another ridiculous character matchup against a different Japanese player, but that's another story.

The unlikely moral here is that playing to win is often counter-productive. Those who love the game and play to play will uncover the unusual nuances that might be important in a tournament. Those nuances might never be important, but the "play to play" player doesn't care. It's all for fun, and he's happy to accumulate whatever knowledge he can. The "play to win" player might lock himself into perfecting certain tactics/strategies/character that will eventually be obsolete, as hard as that will be to believe at the moment. Meanwhile, the player who is able to take a step back and mess around will either discover new mountains to climb, or at least take a stab at climbing some other known mountains. The joke's on you when his mountain turns out to be 10 times higher than yours.

Postscript—

Months after writing the above article, I traveled to Japan in March 2003 as part of Team USA, representing the US in Super Turbo Street Fighter. I also played a bit of Capcom vs. SNK 2 over there. One interesting thing about Japanese players is that they stick with just one character (or one team of characters in CvS2), since their tournament format requires keeping the same character the entire tournament. In the US, we can switch characters between games, giving us an incentive to learn at least 2 to 4 different characters.

The Japanese players definitely proved to me that by sticking to one character and learning EVERYTHING about that character, you win the unwinable matches. In both Street Fighter games I played in Japan, I saw Japanese players who devoted themselves to supposedly weak characters and demonstrated the topological peaks for those characters are miles higher than I had realized. One might think that invalidates some of the points I made in this article--yet the winner of the CvS2 tournament used the same old unfair, broken characters and tactics that we're all aware of (A-groove roll-canceling Blanka/Sakura/Bison for those who care). That same player, Tokido, won the CvS2 portion of the 2001 tournament I mentioned above, so perhaps he's proved my point after all. He's identified what many players agree is the highest peak of that game, and devoted himself to perfecting it. Unfortunately he's an incredibly boring player, but nonetheless a boring player who won the US National and Japan National tournaments!

--Sirlin

Rebuttals and Clarifications

My original "Playing to Win" article generated an incredible amount of e-mail, mostly of the form:

"Dear Sirlin,

I thoroughly enjoyed your Play to Win article. It has changed the way I think about games. [Or, I always believed the same things about games but you put them into words for me.] What you described about Street Fighter is exactly the same for [game X] that I play."

This man just read Playing to Win, Part 1.

"Game X" took the form of Counter-strike, Virtua Fighter, Magic: the Gathering, Legend of the 5 Rings, Starcraft, Smash Brothers, Scrabble, Tiddlywinks, and many others. It's sort of like when a supreme being speaks and each listener believes the words were spoken directly to him in his native language. Ok, it's not exactly like that, but I had you going there. Seriously though, communities surrounding all sorts of competitive games do face the exact same issues.

Now that the overtly self-congratulatory portion of the article is over, let's move on to those who had disagreements and questions about "Playing to Win."

The Objections

There were some who objected to the entire notion of playing to win. Here are representative samples of their views:

"But I really have a tactic that wins every time! Tower rushing in Warcraft 3 [or camping in Unreal Tournament, or whatever else]. It's not that I'm a scrub, but the game is more fun when I don't use that tactic and when I play against others who also don't use it."

Bad news for you. You are a scrub. You can't e-mail me and claim not to be a scrub, yet exemplify the only pre-requisite! (Well you can, but please don't.) What's worse is that the tactics stated are always tactics I know for a fact not to be "too good." Does tower rushing win every Warcraft 3 tournament? No. Are all the best Unreal Tournament players hardcore campers (players who sit in one spot on the map)? No. Then what are you complaining about? Learn the counter to the strategy. If there is no counter (there is a 99.9% that there is, but you don't know about it), then enter some tournaments, win them all and prove it. If you manage to do that, then fine, you've exposed the game as a degenerate one that you should probably no longer play. Otherwise, expand your horizons and learn more about the game. I suppose you could continue to play your homemade version of the game against other scrubs, but I think you'd be missing out.

"What about using the map hack in Starcraft, or a packet interceptor, or a macro to cast your spells faster, or a server that enforces no camping in a first person shooter, or just a swift kick to the shins of your opponent?"

First let's address the smarty-pants questions, then get to the heart of the issue. One of the great things about playing to win is that it's a path of self-improvement that can be measured. Becoming a better cook is also path of self-improvement, but it's more subjective and much more difficult to measure. In playing to win, we have the cold, hard results of winning and losing to guide us. I think it's only useful to consider winning and losing in the context of formal competition, such as tournaments. Kicking your opponents in the shins is outside the scope of the game, and is not legal in any reasonable tournament.

Likewise, any 3^rd party program obtained from an illegal warez site and installed as a hack into your game is also not going to be legal in any reasonable tournament. These things, though technically useful to those trying to win, are outside the path of continuous self-improvement that I'm talking about. You should use any *tournament legal* means to win. If you participate in some strange tournament where all players are allowed to use a map hack, then go for it. You're playing a rather weird, non-standard version of the game, though, which defeats the whole purpose of shedding extra rules so as to play the same game as everyone else. Any reasonable person would consider "no cheating from outside the game" to be part of the default rule-set of any game.

Things outside the scope of the game are usually banned. Leave your narcotic analgesics at home, kids.

The case of a server that monitors camping (sitting in one place too long) in a first person shooter, is a little more interesting. It meets the very important criteria for a ban of strict enforceability (players need no friendly agreement; the server knows exactly who breaks the rule and hands out a penalty). I think it fails on two other counts, though.

1) The tactic of camping is almost certainly not a game-breaking tactic, so it has no place being banned in the first place.

2) If it were a game-breaking tactic, it's just too hard to fairly monitor. If camping is defined as staying within one zone for 3 minutes, and if it really is the best tactic, then sitting that zone for 2 minutes 59 seconds becomes the best tactic.

A ban must be enforceable, warranted, and concrete (or discrete). The last requirement is really just part of the first, I suppose. Imagine that repeating a certain sequence of 5 moves over and over is the best tactic in a game. Further suppose that doing so is "taboo" and that players want to ban it. There is no concrete definition of exactly what must be banned. Can players do 3 repetitions of the 5 moves? What about 2 reps? What about 1? What about repeating the first 4 moves and omitting the 5^th? Is that ok? The game becomes a test of who is willing to play as close as possible to the "taboo tactic" without breaking the (arbitrary) letter of the law defining the tactic.

Some games have it easier than others when it comes to banning. In the card game Magic: the Gathering, it's easy to create an enforceable, discrete ban. "Card X is now illegal. If you have card X in your deck, you are disqualified." The tough part there is whether the ban is actually warranted.

Street Fighter Again!

Speaking of banning, forgive my tangent into the world of Street Fighter. In the 10 year history of the 30 different versions of the game, there has only been one banning issue which had any serious debate: the issue of "roll canceling" in Capcom vs. SNK 2 (CvS2). So-called "roll canceling"is a bug-exploit that allows a player to cancel a ground roll within the first 5/60ths of a second into any special or super move, retaining the invulnerability of roll during the special or super. Let's try that again. Roll canceling is a bug requiring difficult timing that allows a player to have many invulnerable moves that the game designers never intended.

Some people claimed that players would never master roll canceling. That was just foolish, so I'll pretend I never heard that. Players will master anything that will help them win. Some players claimed that if you can beat person A, but not person B, and both A and B learn to roll cancel, that you will still beat A but not B. Others believed that even if the game ended up being all about roll canceling vs. roll canceling, that there would still be a game. Others, including myself, believed that roll canceling would ruin the game, making it degenerately unplayable. The actual results are amusing.

August 9-11, 2002, we held the largest fighting game tournament ever in the United States. 20 players from Japan attended and CvS2 was one of the 3 primary tournament games. Most American players did not learn to roll cancel (including myself, I did not take the game seriously). Most Japanese players did. The 7^th and 8^th place finishers were from the US; the top 6 finishers were all Japanese. The player who won the tournament, Tokido of Japan, played Blanka and Honda(!?), using nothing but roll cancelled invulnerable versions of their self-projectile moves. This tactic absolutely destroyed the #1 US player (who even used roll canceling himself!), and the other Japanese finalist, who was clearly the better player. The "better player" just never got a chance to actually do anything during entire the set of games since the roll cancelled Blanka ball seemed unbeatable.

Should roll canceling be banned? I'm pretty sure it meets the standard of "warranted" since I'm satisfied that under serious tournament conditions, the game completely fell apart into a joke. Unfortunately, the ban would be practically unenforceable, since roll cancelled moves are exceedingly hard to actually detect or prove. I should note that many top players of the game believe that the tactic creates a different, but non-degenerate game, so it should not be banned. Ha!

Whew, we made it through more Street Fighter mumbo-jumbo. Back to the complaints!

"But playing hard against beginners (or my girlfriend) is mean. I play down to their level so it will be close."

This one is tough. Many people presented elaborate situations which were basically equivalent to them being stuck on a desert island with only one video game and one opponent who is doomed never to improve and claimed that it is more fun not to play to win since it would always be a blowout. In such a case, I suppose I concede the point.

Apparently, several of my readers are in this situation.

But what about a case where you have ready access to a variety of opponents? I'll present the case of legendary Street Fighter player Thomas Osaki (darn, back to that game again). I did not actually play with Thomas during his heyday, but I have since met him and I hope he forgives any misrepresentation of his conduct during his glory years.

Thomas Osaki dominated the game of Street Fighter in Northern California. His reputation for "playing to win" was quite extreme. They say he never really engaged in "casual play," but rather always played his hardest, as if every game had something on the line or was a serious tournament. They say he played this way regardless of his opponent, even if his opponent was a 9 year-old girl with no skill at the game. He would "stutter step, throw" her like all the rest (a particularly "cheap" tactic). Did he have no compassion at all? Was he just a jerk? I like to think of Thomas (or his legend, in case it happens not to be true) not as mean player, but as an inspiring player. He set a bar of excellence. In his path of self-improvement, he was not willing to compromise, to embrace mediocrity, or to give less than his all at any time. His peers had the extraordinary opportunity to experience brilliant play whenever he was near, not just at rare moments in a tournament.

And what of the 9 year-old girl? Perhaps she had no business playing in the first place. From Thomas's view, getting her off the machine allowed him to face the opponents he "should" be facing anyway.

*pause for hate-mail*

Because I'm psychic, I can tell that you violently object to the above, and that you have three specific grievances:

1) "I can't play that way, because if I did, and even if I believed it was the best path to self-improvement, I DON'T have a steady stream of opponents in the game I play. I have a limited audience and playing that way, or playing to win at all, alienates them so I am forced to tone it down."

2) "If everyone played that way, no one would ever be able to learn the game."

3) "There are better things in life than winning. You are just a rude bully."

On the fist point--yeah. You got me. If playing your hardest prevents your opponents from playing you, and you have access to only a very few opponents, I guess you're stuck. Sorry. Too bad you don't play Warcraft 3 or some internet game with endless opponents. You will be unable to improve past a certain point, so make the best of it, find more opponents, or play a different game.

On the second point, I guess you got me again. You, the expert player, are powerful in the narrow domain of whichever game you play. How will you use that power? Perhaps you will judge who is worthy to be taught the secret knowledge and who is to be dispatched quickly. Perhaps you will take one of the two extremes, and either defeat all or nurture all. No matter what you do, I am strongly in favor of you passing on your wisdom and passion to other players. It's no "fun" being good at an esoteric game with no players, so it is even to your advantage to train and mentor new players. But beware--all training and no "real playing" can weaken you. Thomas "trained" his peers by exemplifying excellence, setting an inspiring standard. But what is the "moral" thing to do? Does morality matter in this context?

This whole area is far beyond the scope of my ability to advise. It all comes down to what your goal really is. To improve yourself? To improve others? To win? To have "fun"?

We need to take about 100 steps back and remember what the whole point of "playing to win" was in the first place. It's certainly not about beating 9 year-old girls at Street Fighter.

The Whole Point

Imagine a majestic mountain nirvana of gaming. At its peak are fulfillment, "fun", and even transcendence. Most people could care less about this mountain peak, because they have other life issues that are more important to them, and other peaks to pursue. There are few, though, who are not at this peak, but who would be very happy there. These are the people I'm talking to. Some of them don't need any help; they're on the journey. Most, though, only believe they are on that journey but actually are not. They got stuck in a chasm at the mountain's base, a land of scrubdom. Here they are imprisoned in their own mental constructs of made up game rules. If they could only cross this chasm, they would discover either a very boring plateau (for a degenerate game) or the heavenly enchanted mountain peak (for a "deep" game). In the former case, crossing the chasm would teach them to find a different mountain with more fulfilling rewards. In the latter case, well, they'd just be happier. All "playing to win" was supposed to be is the process of shedding the mental constructs that trap players in the chasm who would be happier at the mountain peak.

You could be up there. I don't think there's any internet connections up there, though.

This brings us to point 3 from way back ("there are more things to life than winning"). A lot of people get rubbed the wrong way by this stuff because they think I want to apply "playing to win" to everyone. I don't. It's not that I think everyone should or would want to be on that peak. There are other peaks in life, probably better ones. But those who are stuck in the chasm really should know their positions and how to reach a happier place.

Thanks for all the responses.

--Sirlin

Let us return to The Art of War so that Sun Tzu might help us glimpse the ways of the best fighting game players in the Western Hemisphere. I omit the East because I am not intimately familiar with its players as I am with the unquestionable champions of the West. Of course, Sun Tzu was acquainted with neither when he wrote his little manual of warfare 25 centuries ago, but he still managed to strike directly at the truth.

"...the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him. By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy to approach of his own accord...[and]...entice him with a bait." --Sun Tzu, The Art of War

In fighting games like Street Fighter, positioning is of paramount importance. One maneuvers to place his character just barely outside the range of his opponent's likely moves and just within range to retaliate should the opponent foolishly try to attack from this distance. For example, in all five versions of Street Fighter 2, when Ken and Ryu fight, a sweet spot of positioning is just beyond the reach of the opponent's low roundhouse sweep. If Ryu stands at this distance without blocking (this reduces his the size of his hittable zones...shhhh!), Ken's low roundhouse sweep will miss him. If Ken's sweep misses, Ryu can easily sweep Ken in retaliation or even throw him. Also from this distance, Ken's projectile can be easily blocked on reaction. Any attempt by Ken to jump can be easily countered with Ryu's dragon punch. In short, a wide variety of Ken's most common moves are not effective at this very specific range. The exact location of this sweet spot, of course, varies by character match up and by game.

This is the so-called "sweet spot" position for Ryu or Ken in Street Fighter: Hyper Fighting. It's just beyond the range of the opponent's sweep.

The best players are well aware of this nuance of positioning and fight hard to position themselves favorably. The weaker player, though also "fighting hard" in some sense, probably doesn't even know he should be fighting for this exact distancing, so the expert player is easily able to occupy it. And from this catbird seat, the expert is in control.

Commonly, the expert will conceal the very existence of this sweet spot. He'll do a variety of safe moves in quick succession. He'll maneuver back and forth across the sweet spot in an elaborate dance designed to hide the true advantage he holds. Mysteriously, whenever the weaker player tries to attack, he's always just barely out of range and gets hit back for his attempt. In frustration, he makes even bigger mistakes and soon falls completely apart. He is not unlike a deaf person trying to read the lips of someone doing an impression of a poorly dubbed Kung Fu movie; the real movements are too masked by the false movements to make sense of any of it.

The expert player is also aided by the "fear aura" around him. If, during his elaborate dance, he does a certain move or series with great intensity and purpose, the enemy cannot help but believe the tactic is valid. Often, it's just an illusion—a diversion—to waste time until the weaker player takes the bait and falls into the positional trap.

The low strong move from which I've become legendary (described in my first article on Sun Tzu's Sheathed Sword), is a great example of the fear aura. Often in tournaments, I've done my seemingly-unstoppable low strong at times I know full well it's ineffective, but the opponents don't know that. Their hesitation often allows me to claim the sweet spot position I'm really after.

This tactic of dancing around just out of range of the opponent to lure his moves out is amazingly relevant in nearly every fighting game, including the myriad versions of Street Fighter, the Virtua Fighter series, Tekken, Soul Calibur, even pitiable games like Mortal Kombat.

Personally, I've used the sweet spot of positioning in another way, designed to unnerve the opponent. Like the magician's magician who gives away the secret yet still wins in the end, I have been known to stand at the sweet spot in neutral, doing no moves, and not even blocking. I learned this tactic from better players than myself, but I have that mixture of defiance and infinite patience that lets me hold the stance longer than most.

"Tu Mu relates a strategem of Chu-ko Liang, who in 149 B.C., when occupying Yang-p'ing and about to be attacked by Ssu-ma, suddenly struck his colors, stopped the beating of the drums, and flung open the city gates, showing only a few men engaged in sweeping and sprinkling the ground. This unexpected proceeding had the intended effect; for Ssu-ma I, suspecting an ambush, actually drew off his army and retreated." --Editorial note by Lionel Giles, The Art of War

What's the purpose of standing, seemingly defenselessly? From this range, I'm pretty safe...it is the sweet spot after all. And standing defenselessly and doing no moves is usually a sign that the joystick is broken or something...it's an extreme rarity in fighting game play. In a way, it's an open taunt to the enemy saying, "Just try to do something, you can't touch me." That can be intimidating. When opponents are confronted with a situation they don't quite understand, they're likely to 1) make a mistake or 2) wait until the situation passes. Of course, against me they can wait forever, since I stand in confidence and unending patience, while they sweat in nervousness. Even if I am vulnerable to them in some way, the sheer deception of it all can be utterly convincing.

"If the enemy is taking his ease, harass him; if quietly encamped, force him to move; if well supplied with food, starve him out. Appear at points that the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected." --Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Gandhi knew how annoyed you can get someone by not attacking them.

As a side note, a good way to deal with overly defensive players is to simply not attack them. I've even gone as far as positioning my character across the entire screen from the overly defensive opponent, and letting go of my joystick. They expect attack, and so they shall not get it. I have the will to let time run down to zero, but do they? They never do. They are put off, and must go against their instincts and feebly try to attack. They often get quite mad, which seems odd, since I only employed the logical extreme of their own strategy.

I've also paused and done no moves for stretches of even 20 seconds—in tournament matches—far more than anyone else I've ever heard of. If I must get near the opponent but can't...oh well. Maybe if I wait 20 seconds he'll be flustered and let me in. If the opponent is waiting for my immediate attack, ready with some quick-reflex counter...let him wait on edge for 20 seconds and see how his nerves fare. If the opponent allows himself to be so antagonized, then antagonize him, I say. It's war after all.

Traps

Traps in fighting games are like the "in motion" version of the positional deceptions I've described already. A trap is a sequence of moves that prevents the opponent from acting. A trap might be throwing one projectile after the next at the opponent, and when he jumps, there always seems to be some sort of anti-air attack waiting. A trap can also be one or more tightly spaced moves (no gaps between them) followed by a move that allows the attacker to advance close enough to repeat the trap again. (When the enemy blocks or is hit by the moves, he's knocked back out of range, so an advancing move is needed to repeat the set).

Traps are hardly ever as solid as they seem to be in Street Fighter. Rarely can the attacker complete 3, 2, or even 1 repetition safely without leaving gaps. The effective trapper, though is a master of deceit. Although gaps exist, there appear to be none, and the gaps that are visible are often bait.

Let's take a specific example of a trap to illustrate this. I'll take Ryu's fireball trap in Hyper Fighting Street Fighter, which is basically the same as most fireball traps in any version. Ryu has his opponent knocked down and in the "corner," which means the edge of the playfield. The opponent cannot back up any farther. The game is two dimensional, so there is no way "around" the fireballs other than jumping over them at Ryu. The key to the fireball trap is the slow speed fireball followed immediately by the fast fireball. When the opponent blocks the slow fireball, the fast fireball will hit him basically every time if he tries to jump at Ryu in between. So the "trap" here is really only 2 move long! Not much of trap, yet by illusion, the trap can go as long as 30 fireballs or more!

Do you know how hard it was to get this badass shot? Red fireballs appear randomly in SF: HF, and very infrequently.

First, Ryu can start with a "meaty" or "early" slow fireball against his knocked down opponent. This means the fireball is right on top of the opponent as he rises from the ground, so he's forced to block. If timed correctly, the very tail end of the fireball will make contact (rather than the front). This means Ryu has had time to finish the recovery phase of his first fireball in time to throw another one. The mechanics here are not important to the discussion, so just take my word for it that "meaty" slow fireball, another slow fireball, then a fast fireball form a 3 move trap. The opponent will not (easily) be able to jump at Ryu until that series is over.

So now you have your poor opponent knocked down in the corner. He might try to jump before the 3 series is over, in which case he'll get hit and probably give Ryu the chance to reset the series. Eventually, he'll wait for the 3^rd fireball (the fast one) after which there can be no more true trap. This is the gap. This is when he can jump. Of course, this is exactly what Ryu expects and that's why he didn't throw a 4^th fireball, but instead waited for the jump and did an anti-air dragon punch to knock the opponent on the ground, in the corner again. The trap is reset. Now the enemy is shaken. This trap seems to be unbreakable. Ryu has created the illusion, and can now use it to his advantage.

At this point, Ryu might throw a "meaty" slow fireball, then another slow fireball (that's a real trap), then another slow fireball. Now, that is not a true trap. The enemy could have easily jumped over the 3^rd slow fireball, but he's probably too afraid of the illusion to try. Ryu could then throw a fast fireball, since slow to fast is a trap. Ryu might even sneak in 3 non-trap slow fireballs in a row, then complete the trap with a fast fireball. Everyone knows you can jump after the fast fireball, but Ryu must surely know that too so...bam!, another slow fireball, trap reset. Shouldn't have hesitated. The Ryu player is using his "fear aura" to do moves that aren't even a real trap (many slow fireballs in a row) and to reset the trap secretly (by going back to a slow fireball after the fast one). Though the Ryu player's intense, purposeful execution of these moves might make them appear to be a real trap, it's all just an illusion. It's an elaborate dance designed to conceal where the trap begins and ends.

The gaps are the key aspect of the traps. Because of deception, the defender is not able to detect which gaps are real and which ones are merely bait. Sometimes after a real gap, the attacker will simply wait for the defender to stupidly attack. The defender though he was being pretty clever since he weathered the storm, then attacked at his first opportunity. Of course, this is such an obvious thing to do that the expert fully expects it.

I remember doing difficult reversal attacks at "clever" times during one opponent's traps, only to be countered every single time. I finally realized I was as clever as the man who runs from his pursuer into a room totally empty save for a large chair. It may seem "clever" to hide behind the chair, but the lack of all other alternatives makes the "clever" move wholly obvious to the opponent.

Not only can the attacker now fake his way through gaps that let him reset the trap, but he can also create artificial gaps as bait. After blocking a series of 8 fireballs (it sure seemed like a trap), there is an apparent opportunity to jump out. Is it a real gap? Is it a gap that Ryu put there just to make me think there's a gap so I'll jump? Bam! Another blocked slow fireball. The opponent is second guessing himself, hesitating, and completely lost in the web of illusion.

"Thus one who is skillful at keeping the enemy on the move maintains deceitful appearances, according to which the enemy will act. He sacrifices something that the enemy may snatch at it. By holding out baits, he keeps him on the march; then with a body of picked men he lies in wait for him." --Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The top fighting game players are able to conceal their strengths (sweet spot positioning) and weaknesses (gaps in traps) while simultaneously putting on mesmerizing dances designed to harass and confuse the opponent into hesitation, irritation, or worst of all—second guessing himself. If only Sun Tzu were here to see it!

Over 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote a book called The Art of War, in which he told us to divide and conquer the enemy, and to concentrate our firepower. Over one year ago, Zileas wrote a webpage called The Zilean School of AssKicking, in which he told us to do basically the same thing.

Zileas was talking about Starcraft and Tzu was talking actual war, but since real-time strategy (RTS) games are (arguably) simulations of actual war, it's not surprising that great minds have thought (thunk?) alike here. What's interesting is that while Tzu wrote mostly about the large, macro scale, Zileas wrote about the very same concepts on the small, micro scale. Ironically, Zileas made his fame in the Starcraft world by developing and writing about his "new school" approach to the game where he focuses on dividing and conquering and concentrating firepower on the micro level, rather than the "old school" approach of concentrating on the macro level. In case you missed the irony, it's that the old school that Zileas argued against was just another interpretation of the very same concepts his own school was based on, all straight from The Art of War.

On the most zoomed out level, Tzu tells us when to attack, based on the sheer size of the armies involved:

"It is the rule in war: If our forces are ten to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two, one to meet the enemy in front, and one to fall upon his rear; if he replies to the frontal attack. he may be crushed from behind; if to the rearward attack, he may be crushed in front.

"If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him. Though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force."

On the most zoomed out level, Zileas tells us when (in Starcraft) we are losing:

"If your kill ratio multiplied by the ratio of your production to their production is less than 1, you are losing. If their economy is gaining speed, and yours is stationary, and this number is close to but over 1, you are still probably losing.

When I say kill ratio I do not mean units killed/units lost; I mean RESOURCES killed/RESOURCES lost both in terms of unit production, miscellaneous upkeep costs (scarabs) and building production/loss."

The Art of War

One of Tzu's main points is to attack an inferior force with a superior one. Even if both armies are of the same size and power, this can easily be done by looking at smaller pieces of the whole. If the enemy only defends one piece of his empire—and we know this—then the rest of his empire is wide open. We can send but a fraction of our troops to dismantle any number of his undefended spots. The more spots he defends, the weaker each spot becomes. If he defends all ten of his outposts equally and we concentrate the attack of but half our army at one spot, we outnumber him 5 to 1! We have concentrated our firepower, while the enemy's has been divided and weakened.

All of this rests upon the shoulders of secrecy and reconnaissance. Without these, Tzu's method of divide and conquer would not be possible.

"The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known, for then the enemy will have to prepare against a possible attack at several different points; and his forces being thus distributed in many directions, the numbers we shall have to face at any given point will be proportionately few.

"...Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us. Knowing the place and time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight. But if neither time nor place be known, then the left wing will be impotent to succor the right, the right equally impotent to succor the left, the van unable to relieve the rear, or the rear to support the van."

Support the van, kids.

So Tzu tells us to keep our own positions and intentions secret. He tells us to discover the positions and intentions of the enemy. Through this we can concentrate our firepower on the enemy's weakest points, even at the expense of our own defense; if our weak points are secret from the enemy, he will not know where to attack. And our intentions being secret force the enemy to divide his own force for us, in effect, conquering himself, since he cannot hope to defend with parts of an army against the whole concentration of attack from ours.

Starcraft: The "Old School"

Tzu's ways are the ways of the best Starcraft players in what Zileas calls the "old school." These players strive to build a strong economy to finance overwhelming hordes of units. When they outnumber the enemy 10 to 1, they attack; 5 to 1, they surround...you get the idea. Individual battles matter little to these players, since it's more important to build a large mobile force capable of attacking the opponent's weak spots.

Most of these players come from the days of Warcraft 2, Starcraft's predecessor. Warcraft's interface and units didn't allow players to gain much benefit from micromanaging individual battles. Warcraft's units were more...homogeneous...meaning you didn't see kill ratios of 50:1 like Templars and Reavers are capable of in Starcraft. In short, macromanagement was the only way to go. Build a large army. Divide the enemy's army. Concentrate the firepower of your army.

Starcraft: The "New School"

And then there was Zileas. He came along and pointed out the amazing effects micromanagement of individual battles can have in Starcraft, and he preached the revolutionary ideas of...divide and conquer and concentration of firepower...on the small scale, that is.

Lesson 1: Shift queue to concentrate firepower. When enemy forces engage, say 10 marines versus 10 marines, they will fire at each other in a mostly random distribution, so units will only start dying towards the end of the battle. The better player will select all his marines and concentrate their firepower on a single enemy marine, then (hold shift to) queue the next command to concentrate firepower on the second enemy marine, and so forth. All 10 of the first players marines will kill one of the enemy's units right way, reducing his firepower. The 10 marines will then automatically (through shift queuing) concentrate their fire on the next enemy unit, then the next one, and so on. The enemy is dividing his own fire but the better player concentrates it.

Lesson 2: Use formation to concentrate firepower. When two enemy forces engage, say 10 marines versus 10 marines, formation can be everything. If one player marches his single file line of marines into a horizontal line of enemy marines, the horizontal line formation will be able to concentrate its fire on the first marine in the single file line, then the second, and so on. The last marines in the single file line won't even be close enough to fire until all their friends are dead. Even better than a horizontal line is "shallow encirclement," a crescent shaped formation that maximizes the firepower one can apply to a point.

Lesson 3: Use choke points (narrow passes) to divide the enemy's units. When a large enemy force must pass through a narrow choke point (either naturally created by terrain or artificially by your buildings) he is dividing his own force for you. You can concentrate your firepower on each unit as it passes by.

There are more lessons, but his point is the concentration of firepower on the small scale of an individual battle. I cannot leave out Zileas's most extreme and signature use of concentration of firepower: his "Doom Drop."

Zileas is known for playing the Protoss race, the race smallest in numbers and most powerful in punch. Notice that they are already concentrated before he even got a hold of them. A so-called Doom Drop is when you fill 4 or 5 shuttles (flying transports that carry other units) full of amazingly powerful Protoss attack units such as Reavers, Templars, and Archons. (These shuttles are accompanied by Scouts, heavily armored air units.) This superabundance of force—this concentration of firepower—is enough to overwhelm nearly anything, so long as it is applied instantly at a single point. When 1 Archon, 3 Reavers, 4 Zealots, and 3 Templars suddenly appear in the middle of your base, the sheer force of it all applied to your surely badly positioned units is usually too much.

A Doom Drop in Starcraft, Zileas style.

Even more devastating is what Zileas calls his "Extra Crispy with Slaw" version of the Doom Drop, where he uses hallucinated (illusionary) units to draw fire. Flying 4 shuttles into an enemy base is not an easy task, since they'll probably be shot down easily whatever anti-air happens to be scattered about. 4 Shuttles accompanied by, say, 5 scouts is another matter. Now the anti-air fire has been divided among more targets. Better still if all these targets are accompanied by, say, 10 illusionary Scouts. The illusions can't attack, but they draw fire enemy fire giving the real units more time to act. In effect, the illusions divide and conquer the enemy's anti-air fire.

Preparations for a Doom Drop, Extra Crispy with Slaw.

Micro and Macro

Why not apply Tzu's teachings of divide and conquer and concentration of firepower on the large scale as well as the small? Must one choose one over the other? The answer in Starcraft, realistically, is yes. One only has so much attention which must be divided between micro Extra Crispy with Slaw Doom Drops and macro economy and horde-building. Zileas explains:

The Third Resource: Concentration

"Minerals and Gas are the resources that most players think in terms of. Although these are central to the game, you also need to think in terms of concentration. I define concentration as time that a player has to spend focusing on a task during the game. Expanding is a high concentration task, especially if you are Protoss. Attacking certainly has a high concentration level, and the more concentration you put into an attack, the higher the effect. Even scouting carries a high associated cost. One big difference between "Someone who is really good" and someone who is #1 is knowing when you need to watch a battle, and when you don't, and recognizing that your opponent also has a finite amount of concentration to draw from. There are a number of techniques for minimizing concentration costs (i.e. hot-keying buildings, using magic spell hot keys, queuing attacks, etc.), but everything you do has some intangible concentration cost. I would argue that as you get better at Starcraft, you go into a match with a larger innate concentration income/second. :P It is very possible when doing multiple coordinated attacks at different locations to use your superior concentration reserve (if you have it) to decimate an enemy who is tied with you in terms of unit control and tangible resources. Although I'm sorry to say this, concentration is basically talent. Playing a lot of games slowly raises it, but its something some people have a lot of and some people don't. It's kinda like fast sprint ability in running: you can train up and become a great long distance runner, but for sprinting, there's always that talent based barrier--you can slowly improve it, but everyone has a limit. I'm sure that someone will push me off #1 who has more innate talent, along with the same skills...

"The best way to train concentration, as Visage has reminded me just now over MIT chat, is to play 2 on 1s and 3 on 1s (multiple opponents vs. you). I can often pull 3 on 1s, and certainly 2 on 1s, and really the only reason I can do this is my ability to multitask. Also, team melee is an interesting game as it involves doubled concentration reserves on both sides... well almost doubled since its not one mind thinking at once and they have to communicate..."

Whether you, as a player, spend your concentration resources on the large scale or the small depends on which game is at hand and your personal style. In either case, the same principles are at work. On one level or another, thou shalt concentrate thy fire and divide and conquer thine enemy!

Postscript

In an odd footnote of history, I was a senior at MIT when Zileas, who apparently has a real name (Tom Cadwell), was a freshman. I never actually met him, though. Zileas leveraged his success as a Starcraft player to help form an independent game development company called Ethermoon. The release of his first title, an rts called Strifeshadow: Tournament Edition, is due for release shortly.

This goofball is Zileas. =) Is this a great pic or what? Starcraft, MIT, and Zileas all in one!

"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." --Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Twenty five centuries ago in China, Sun Tzu wrote a little manual called The Art of War. In the 2,500 years since that time, entire civilizations have risen and fallen. Countless authors have tackled the subject of war, and wars unnumbered have been waged. And still, Sun Tzu's words have unnerving relevance. Mao Tse-tung's Little Red Book of strategic and tactical doctrine was a nearly word for word recounting of The Art of War. It's rumored that Napoleon's secret weapon during his conquest of Europe was none other than Tzu's Art of War. Surprisingly, the book was never translated into English until 1905. (Here's a link to way too much information about buying the book.)

One of Tzu's points is the concept of achieving victory with a sheathed sword. That is, achieving victory before the actual battle begins. After all, actual battle is taxing and produces casualties, and more to my point, involves the risk of defeat. Why risk defeat when it's possible to win before the fighting starts?

How does this apply to playing competitive games? One interpretation is the idea of winning the psychological battle with the opponent before the game begins. Though valid, this is not my argument today. (Maybe I'll write about that someday, though.) My interpretation is that "actual conflict" does not make up the entirety of a game. Most games begin with some kind of jockeying for position or resources, building up of attack potential and defense potential, and only later in the game does the conflict take place.

The conflict is where (mathematical) game theory kicks in full swing. During this phase of the game (in most competitive games), players are faced with a large number of decisions which depend on "what he thinks I think he thinks I think he will do." Each player must measure the other and guess what he'll do, guess if the opponent will expect that guess, and so on. As with any battle, it can get very messy. As with anything messy, there is possibility of surprise, luck, and defeat.

This is Wesley Snipes in the movie Art of War. Do not see this movie.

In many games, though, it's possible to create traps or lay tricks that must be dealt with before the actual conflict can start. What I mean is that it's possible to throw up brick walls that the opponent must break through before the back-and-forth strategic play, the "fun part," can even begin. If an enemy must first defeat 3 brick walls before even facing you in actual battle, then he'll be weakened--or even defeated--before real battling begins.

Street Fighter Alpha 3

I don't even like Street Fighter Alpha 3, but I've defeated quite a number of opponents in tournament play who were "better" than me, and who certainly knew far more about this particular fighting game than me. Part of the reason is that (depending on the character match up), they have to pass a few "magic gates" before we really even start playing. For example, with my Zangief, they'll first have to pass the "I'm going to jump straight up and down forever doing fierce punches" test. Zangief is surprisingly safe while jumping straight up, and his fierce during this jump has incredibly far horizontal range. Opponents might try to jump at him, only to get hit by the fierce. They might try to throw a fireball, only to be hit out it by the fierce. They might try to walk up and dragon punch the fierce, only have me not do a fierce punch that time. I waited for them to miss their dragon punch, then fierced them back. Actually, retaliating with a fierce isn't even necessarily the best move in that situation, but it's sure the most annoying. It helps strengthen the illusion that the jumping straight up fierce is an unstoppable, uncounterable, unfair move.

So if an opponent can't even figure out how to get past the "jump up fierce" test, why should I bother actually fighting them? Why should I ever stop doing it? I might lose if we actually fought. And even if they bumble around and get hit a few times before they figure out how to get past the fierce, they'll be at the disadvantage. I'll have more energy and the luxury of playing defensively, should I desire to.

If they pass that test, there's another test! It's the "jump at them with fierce splash" test. Lots of characters can stop that one, but some have trouble. Zangief's "splash" has incredible priority and often hits the enemy's moves. It's easily blocked, but my favorite move to do after a jumping splash is--guess what--another jumping splash. I'll do it all day if I have to. As long as I'm not losing--that is, if doing the move forever will put me ahead in damage or keep me even--then I'm happy to do it. I'm setting the pace of the match, I'm not losing, and the opponent has to "pass the test" of the fierce splash before we get around to actually playing.

Famous Brick Walls: The Berlin Wall. Try fighting someone after getting past this thing.

Sun Tzu Again

Another related point of Sun Tzu's:

"The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy."

Giving the opponent brick walls to deal with before engaging in actual combat is a way to bide your time, waiting for the opponent to defeat himself. Not all walls must be broken down. For example, an opponent faced with my "jumping straight up and down Zangief" could simply decide to back off and wait. What he might not realize is that I have unlimited patience. Since my brick wall in this case is keeping me even (I'm not falling behind) I'm happy to do it forever, which is probably much longer than he's willing to avoid the battle. Most opponents lack the will to avoid battle forever, and will eventually enter into it at a disadvantage out of impatience. Whether the opponent attempts to break down the wall or not, he is all the while susceptible to error. His patience is sapped and in all likelihood, he'll open himself up to attack through hasty desperation. It's for this reason that the ability of the "brick wall" tactic to do actual damage is far less important than how solid it is. The more solid (even if doesn't damage the opponent, but merely stands in his way), the more frustrated the opponent, and the more likely for him to make the fatal mistake I was waiting for the whole time.

Starcraft

The real-time strategy game Starcraft is even more directly a game of war than Street Fighter. In Starcraft, a player makes a huge number of choices long before actual conflict occurs. These are decisions about how he builds his base and which units he produces when. The possibility of being defeated before "the actual game" begins is quite high. You're Protoss and didn't build any observers? Too bad, since you die automatically to my invisible Dark Templars or invisible Lurkers. It doesn't matter what you have, since you can't even attack my forces. You're dead. Or perhaps you're Protoss and didn't build any anti air (maybe you were going for a ground force of Zealots). That's too bad, too, since now you die automatically to my air force of Mutalisks, which again, you can't even attack. Maybe your mistake was not checking the perimeter of your base carefully enough. I built a bunker just outside your visual range, and put 4 marines in it right at the start of the game. Then I built another bunker a little closer to your gas mine, this time in your view. You'll have great difficulty stopping that second bunker, since you'll have to take fire from the first bunker if you even try. I'll eventually leap frog those 4 marines all the way to the heart of your base.

The list goes on and on and on. Starcraft games often go on quite long, with tactics, counter tactics, and plenty of game theory and strategy. Your 3 bases in good position versus his 5 bases which are poorly defended. Should you cut off his mineral supply? Lay siege? Attack his flank? Sounds like we're "actually playing" here. But many games of Starcraft are over before the "game" part even begins, because there are such a large number of ways one can lose the game before real conflict begins.

This isn't necessarily a design flaw at all. You might just call it depth, though it can be frustrating to beginners who play 10 games in a row of "Ok, now I know to always scout my base perimeter," "Ok, now I know to always scout his base," "Ok, now I know to build detectors quickly," and so on. There are a lot of hoops one has to jump through (and learn to jump through without even thinking) before one can reasonably hope to get the 'actual game.' Sun Tzu would have loved it!

Marvel vs. Capcom 2

The fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is another especially applicable game. Nearly ever good character in that game is good because of his ability to create "lock-down" traps. Dr. Doom can cover the screen with wide pink lasers while simultaneously calling helper Blackheart to create vertical columns of ice track the enemy. Strider can force the opponent to block a zillion orbs, then block damaging rocks from his Dr. Doom assist, then go back into his orbs. Spiral can cover the screen with streams of knives at varying heights, covered by, say, Cable's beam assist which gives her enough time to call a new batch of knives to throw. If you don't know the game, it's all pretty meaningless I know, but the game is so amazingly full of brick walls that must be gotten through before any actual combat occurs that I felt it required mentioning.

Street Fighter Alpha 2

To further drive home the two points we've covered from The Art of War (win before the fight begins, and wait for the opponent to beat himself), I'll now tell the story of one of my own Street Fighter tournament victories. The tournament was called the East Coast Championships 4, or ECC4. I had won the Street Fighter Alpha2 portion of the ECC3 tournament, so I felt a lot of pressure to win again. I made it to the finals where I faced veteran player Thao Duong. Thao plays only one character (Chun Li), and he's incredibly robotic, meaning he executes moves perfectly and rarely makes mistakes.

I was undefeated in the tournament so far, and Thao had one loss (it was double elimination). This means Thao had to beat me 4 out of 7 games to be even with me, and another set of 4 out of 7 to win. I only had to win one set of 4 out of 7 to win.

I started by playing Zangief, my secret counter to Chun Li. Since it's widely believed Chun Li totally destroys Zangief (but not mine!), it would be a flashy way to win. Whether it was my year of no practice or Thao's playing or Chun Li's dominance of the game I can't be sure...but Zangief was not up to the task that day. No problem, since I would switch to my standard Chun Li killer: Ryu. I scraped together a win or two, but again my lack of practice was showing and Thao won by greater and greater margins. I then realized the horror of what I would have to do, and what I would become somewhat famous for in the Street Fighter community. I realized that the only remaining character I could reasonably play in a tournament was Rose, and furthermore that Rose, though very good against most characters, really only has one move against Chun Li: low strong.

Rose (left) does "low strong" to Chun Li (right). In the Street Fighter world, "low strong" and "Sirlin" are synonyms.

And this is where Sun Tzu comes in. My use of Rose's low strong move is both a method of winning before fighting and of waiting. The low strong is an uninspiring little punch that doesn't have all that much range, but it has amazing priority to beat other attacks. It's also incredibly fast, allowing Rose to do multiple low strongs in a row with only the tiniest of gaps.

The low strong was my brick wall--my first test. The only problem is that there was no second test. And worse yet, there really wasn't much "actual fighting" in store for Thao should he get past my "trick." I could only hope that he'd fumble in trying to get around it, and even become frustrated enough to make mistakes. In retrospect, this is not the best approach to take against the robotic master of move execution himself, but it's still preferable to no strategy at all, which was my alternative.

I low stronged my little heart out. Probably over 90% of my moves were low strong, done at a very particular range, and with a particular pattern of timing that I dare not reveal. (Ha!) I had infinite patience to low strong forever, forcing Thao to defeat this trick. If he could beat it, we would then have to actually play, and at that point surely he would win. But fortunately, he never did beat it: he fought it head on. At times, he would decide not to attack, not to beat against a brick wall. I used that opportunity to get at the optimal range (which is one pixel farther from him than the range of my low strong). From this range, I continued to low strong forever. I wasn't winning by that, but I wasn't losing. Even the robotic Thao would eventually tire and attack, even if at the wrong times, out of annoyance or desperation. Spectators reported that I did an amazing 18 consecutive low strongs without either myself or Thao doing any other moves.

A side effect of my low strongs is that they create a "baseline expectation" of what I'm going to do. The sneaky roundhouse I do after the 17^th low strong is pretty tricky, actually. I mean, wouldn't you expect an 18^th low strong after the 17^th one? (Note: I was actually even more sneaky, by doing the 18^th low strong, then the low roundhouse.)

My story is dragging on as much as that match did. Each game is best 2 out of 3 rounds, and games tended to go the full 3 rounds. They went the full count of 4-3 when Thao won the first set, and all the way to the 14^th and final game...where I won 4-3 in the second set...to win the tournament. I collapsed in dehydration and drank a quart of red Gatorade without pause.

I urge you check out this excellent, if brief, tournament report by Chocobo.

Had I ever actually fought Thao "normally" with Rose, he would have killed me easily. Instead, in an amazingly boring and non-crowd-pleasing show, I attempted to prevent actual fighting through my "brick wall trick" of low strong. Furthermore, I bored my opponent into attacking hastily at times, and generally frustrated him, or at least think I did.

It's interesting to note that early rounds of Street Fighter tournaments are often dominated by "tricks" like the ones I've described. Few players have the will to keep those brick walls up forever, though, and eventually resort to "actually playing." Also interesting is that the last rounds of Street Fighter tournaments--especially the finals round to determine the top 2 players--very rarely operate anything like I've described. Far more often, the players good enough to get the final 2 are also good enough to easily avoid the kind of roadblocks I've been talking about, even if they have to devise countermeasures on the spot. The usual case at such high levels of play is "actual fighting" right off the bat, the very thing I try to put off as long as possible in a tournament match. So it seems that (my own exploits excepted!) tricks will only get you so far. To the benefit of the spectators, the best of the best actually do fight.

Some may be wondering why this site about game design includes a section on playing competitive games. Here you go:

One cannot hope to design a hugely successful competitive game if one is ignorant of how such games are played at the highest level.

It's that simple.

Multiplayer games are played for "fun," sure. Playing for "fun" and playing to win are wildly different pursuits. Edward Lasker begins the second half of his book Chess for Fun & Chess For Blood:

"In the preceding pages, we have looked only at the pleasant side of chess---the kind played among amateurs for the excitement of a battle without bloodshed, in which the supreme command is in their hands, but the outcome of which is of no grave consequence to either player.

"There is another side to chess, however, which is quite different---tournament and match games played by masters or those striving to become masters, whose standing, if not livelihood, may be seriously affected by the outcome.

"Such games are no fun, even for the winner. They are the hardest work imaginable. You play for blood! You avoid the lure of beautiful combinations unless you see clearly that they do not endanger your chance to draw the game at least, if you cannot win it. For it is not the beauty of a combination which wins a tournament, but the number of points you make---a whole point for a win, a half a point for a draw, and an "egg" for a loss."

Well said. But surely most players of any hit competitive game do not play with the seriousness Lasker alludes to. They don't. And accordingly, the game must be fun at low levels of skill. Players who play for the momentary amusement must have an exciting experience. Every element---the sound effects, music, user interface, mood, theme, feel, everything---must contribute to that experience. But that is not enough.

Actually, I suppose it is enough if you are not after making something really great, or if for other reasons beyond the scope of the game design the game is doomed from the start. It's also enough for a game like Ready 2 Rumble, where the game's success had to do with the marketing, the characters, and being a launch title for a new system. Its gameplay---which suffered horribly, and worse, needlessly from slippery slope---was almost incidental and didn't have to be solid.

If those things are enough for you, then just get out of here now. Go on. This site isn't for you.

Ok, those of you still here...your game will need to attract the hardcore players who play at an insanely high level. They're your opinion leaders. If a game can stand up to the rigors of tournament play---which is orders of magnitude more rigorous than you might believe---then it will be able to hold their attention. As players get better, they will get more into your game, not less into it. The hardcore players, as opinion leaders, influence a big part of the casual market.

Just look at the examples: Street Fighter, Starcraft, and Quake. All three games have some problems at tournament level play, but on the whole, they hold together surprisingly well. They can withstand the harsh extremes of expert players trying to eke out every possible advantage...even after years of play. If these games couldn't do that, they certainly wouldn't have been the hits they are. There would have been no tournament scenes. Interest would have died away. They would not be perceived as THE standards of competition that they are.

Lots of people are qualified to make a game fun for beginners. The real trick is making it still be a game at all once the ridiculously clever top players get a hold of it. That's the trick, as well as the brass ring, for that's what the market rewards via the bandwagon effect.

I think one (of many) reasons there are such few games that succeed on this level is that being a top player and being articulate and logical enough to explain exactly why you're a top player are skill sets that generally do not go hand in hand. As a result, there just aren't that many people with both the knowledge and ability to design tournament games.

All I can say is to jump in the pool and see how it really is, if you haven't already. Play to win.

Survivor was a 13 part television series on CBS in which 16 people were voluntarily marooned a desert island. Every 3 days they'd vote someone off the island until there was only one left...who would win $1 million. I'm sure you've heard of this.

I only half-heartedly watched the series during its first run, but I watched it very closely when it was replayed during the Olympics. (I find the Olympics and physical sports not strategically interesting.) I found Survivor to be a huge, blazing advertisement for "playing to win." The community on that island so closely mirrored my Street Fighter community that I was shocked. There was one expert player and 15 "scrubs." Richard Hatch, the winner of Survivor, was the only participant who really even played the game at all. He put it best when he said towards the end, "I arrived on this island at the same time as everyone else. We all saw the sign that said ‘Survivor---outwit---outplay---outlast.' That's what I've been trying to do since before I even got here, and the other 15 people seemed to think they were on vacation."

The Game

Let's take a strategic look at Survivor before we talk about Richard. There is only one reasonable, logical way to hope to win such a game. There are not two ways. There are not three ways. There is ONE way: to form a voting alliance. At first, the 16 players are divided into 2 teams of 8. Every 3 days, the teams face each other in competitions called "immunity challenges." The losing team must vote a member off. After 6 players were voted off, the teams merged, forming a single 10 person team. At this point, the immunity challenges were individual competitions, not team efforts. The individual who won such a challenge would be immune from being voted off during the next voting period.

Again, the obvious way to win this game is to form a voting alliance. If you have teammates with whom you coordinate your vote, then you have both the guarantee that their votes won't go towards you, and the power to concentrate your votes on a single opponent. The whims of other players' votes are sometimes hard to predict, but the more people you have in your alliance, the better you can control who to vote off. By doing this, you control the game. Now, you don't want too many people (too difficult to manage, and not self serving enough anyway). Yet you don't want too few (not enough voting power). An optimal number for a game of 16 people might be 4. Once those 4 become the final 4, they should amicably dissolve the alliance and each try to win. This was Rich's plan.

The Players

A four person voting alliance was not something Rich stumbled

Richard Hatch, winner of the first Survivor.

into; it was his plan all along, starting before he ever set foot on the island. Not a single other player had even considered such a thing. The other players reacted in classic scrub fashion to Rich's plan, calling it "no fun." I was just waiting for someone to call it "cheap." The other players were bound up by their own made-up rules of honor---rules the game has no knowledge of. The game knows nothing but winning and losing. One player said, "It's no fun to sit around and get picked off one by one by an alliance. If that's the way the game is going to be, then I don't want to play." Good. Get off. Why did you show up in the first place if not to win?

Jenna's kids will be real proud that her mother lost.

One player, Jenna, said that she didn't want to be part of an alliance because she wanted her young daughters to watch the show and be proud of her mother when they got older. The supposition here is that she is somehow ethically bound to play in a sloppy, non-strategic way. Rich's response was, "Jenna should make her kids proud by showing that she can WIN. She should be concerned with showing them ‘look kids, mommy has the will to win and this is how you do it.'"

Rudy was an interesting player. He initially found Rich's alliance

You gotta love Rudy.

to be somehow dishonorable, but he joined anyway and he gave his word. Above all else, Rudy keeps his word. Three episodes later, he told the camera that he had "turned 180 degrees," saying that he now believes that the alliance is absolutely necessary and that he'll stick with it until the end. When Rudy was eventually voted off, his parting words to future Survivor players were, "Forming an alliance is the only way to win this game." Yet I believe that Rudy was incredibly lucky that his nature (being true to his word) was exactly in line with what happened to be an important quality to have in the game. After all, if one is to be in an alliance, one must be trustworthy. Rudy had no superior grasp of playing competitive games, but at least he was able to see reason when Rich explained the alliance.

Another notable player was Colleen. She saw her own defeat

If only Colleen acted earlier.

coming. She saw the alliance. She saw she wasn't in it. She saw that the alliance had the power to vote her and every other non-aligned member off. Her conclusion? To form her own alliance. This was exactly the right response, but a case of too little, too late. Rich said, "I find it amusing that people are so naïve as to think they can start playing strategically at this very late stage of the game. It's far too late to start now." In fact, Colleen banded the 3 votes together, and might have gotten Kelly's crucial 4^th swing vote, but failed.

Gervase was another true scrub. He initially renounced alliances

Gervase thought alliances were cheap...at first.

saying that he'd never play that way. It's cheap, you know. Once his fate was sealed and he would clearly lose to the alliance, only then did Colleen change Gervase's tune. He said, "Well, we got a new strategy, going to try a something new." He was all excited. He was talking about Colleen's alliance. He was a scrub. Scrubs often delight in feeling innovative and original when they latch on to better player's superior tactics when it's far too late to matter.

Brilliant Strategy

It was the last episode of Survivor, though, that really showed what competitive games were all about. Rich's forfeit of the last immunity challenge was the most brilliant move played during the 39 day game. With 3 players left, the final immunity challenge was simply to stand up and keep touching a wooden idol. It would go on for hours and hours until two gave up and one was left. The winner would cast the single vote to remove one of the two losing players. The final two players would then stand before a jury of 9 of their previous colleagues. The jury would decide the winner.

Rich was in a tough spot here, with remaining players Rudy and Kelly. He had a deal with Rudy that they would stick together until the very end. They agreed that if either of them won the challenge, they'd vote Kelly off the island and go to the finals together. The problem is that Rich was well aware that he'd lose the grand prize if he went to the panel of 9 judges against Rudy. Rich was seen as slimy and Rudy, though a bigot, was well liked. If Rudy won the immunity challenge, he'd take Rich to the final 2, but Rich would still lose. That's no good.

If Rich wins the immunity challenge, he's stuck. He can't take Rudy with him to the final 2 (since Rudy would win the final popularity vote), but has to take him (they had an agreement). Rich would be forced to break the agreement and vote Rudy off. Unfortunately, that means he'd lose Rudy's vote (in retaliation) in the finals. In fact, he might even lose more votes since breaking an agreement is a slimy thing to do.

That leaves only one possibility: Kelly must win. If she wins, her gut instinct will be to vote off Rich (she hates him) and go to the finals with Rudy. Unfortunately for her, she'd lose the finals by a landslide to Rudy. Rich's gamble is that Kelly, scrubby as she is, is not dumb enough to go to the finals against Rudy. And if she votes off Rudy and goes to the finals with Rich (her smartest option) then she's done Rich's dirty work for him. Rich is in the final 2 with Kelly (just like he wanted) and he never had to break his agreement with Rudy, so he'll still have Rudy's vote in the end. Kelly had already proven her ability to win such immunity challenges, so it was fairly certain she'd beat Rudy if Rich just conceded. Even if by fluke Rudy won the immunity challenge, he'd still take Rich to the final 2. So Rich took the gamble and took his hand off the idol on purpose, hoping Kelly would win---and she did. It all worked out exactly like he planned.

Kelly: Star Athlete, Star Scrub

Kelly, scrub to the very end, remarked that Rich claimed he had some reason for removing his hand, but that she knew his arm was just tired.

But Kelly would have her final moment being the queen scrub.

Kelly, Queen Scrub.

In the finals between Rich and Kelly, they were each allowed to give opening statements of why the jury of previously voted-off players should vote for them. Kelly was a pillar of inspiration to scrubs everywhere when she explained that people should vote for the best person, "not based on how they played the game." As a scrub, she had her own made-up rules of the game that the game itself knew nothing about. She was "more honorable" and "a better friend" or other rubbish.

Rich responded by taking the exactly opposite stance, as he well should. He said that entire purpose of coming to this island was to play this game. Kelly asked for votes based on friendship, but that's not what the votes should be based on. Friendship is great and worthwhile, but it's not purpose of the game called Survivor. The purpose of the game is to win. The best player of the game maximizes his chances of winning at all times. In this case, that meant forming an alliance, which Rich did. Rich was basically asking the jury to leg go their mental construct of made-up rules and see the game for what it really was. He asked them to choose the player who played to win. And they did.

More Games

If the players of Survivor 2 actually learned the lessons of Survivor 1 and of competitive games in general, then things will get very messy, indeed. They'll all try to form 4 person voting alliances. If at least two such alliances emerge, then the optimal move is to align two of the alliances to get rid everyone else. Then the 8 will compete as 4 vs 4. Then the remaining 4 would do well to have already planned partners of 2 or 3. This strategy of the shrinking alliance, though (I believe) optimal, is an incredibly tricky thing to manage in actual practice. As I said...it will be messy.

Anyway, Rich may be many things, but he is, at least, an excellent player of competitive games. It's so telling that he was able to beat Gervase in a variety of card games Rich had never even played. If you're out there Rich, I'd be honored to introduce you to Starcraft. (heh.)

[Edit: I wrote this article over 6 years ago. It was so widely quoted and valuable to so many that I spent two years writing the book Playing to Win. The book is far more polished than these articles, better organized, and covers many, many additional topics not found on my site. If you have any interest in the process of self-improvement through competitive games, the book will serve you better than the articles. --Sirlin]

Playing to win is the most important and most widely misunderstood concept in all of competitive games. The sad irony is that those who do not already understand the implications I'm about to spell out will probably not believe them to be true at all. In fact, if I were to send this article back in time to my earlier self, even I would not believe it. Apparently, these concepts are something one must come to learn through experience, though I hope at least some of you will take my word for it.

Introducing...the Scrub

In the world of Street Fighter competition, we have a word for players who aren't good: "scrub." Now, everyone begins as a scrub---it takes time to learn the game to get to a point where you know what you're doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that by merely continuing to play or "learn" the game, that one can become a top player. In reality, the "scrub" has many more mental obstacles to overcome than anything actually going on during the game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He's lost the game before he's chosen his character. He's lost the game even before the decision of which game is to be played has been made. His problem? He does not play to win.

The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, but he is bound up by an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevent him from ever

Historical Scrub: Neville Chamberlain. He didn't even try to win, instead offering "appeasement" to Hitler.

truly competing. These made up rules vary from game to game, of course, but their character remains constant. In Street Fighter, for example, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations "cheap." So-called "cheapness" is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn't attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design---it's meant to be there---yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield which will protect him indefinitely. Why? Exploring the reasoning is futile since the notion is ridiculous from the start.

You're not going to see a classic scrub throw his opponent 5 times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimize his chances of winning? Here we've encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you...that's cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that's cheap, too. We've covered that one. If you sit in block for 50 seconds doing no moves, that's cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap.

Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is another great way to get called cheap. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and