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Review
   

A game review is a process where a game you played is discussed by

  • yourself
  • your opponent (and yourself)
  • a teacher (and yourself)

A common practice is to play a teaching game with a teacher. This game will usually be reviewed by the teacher.

Reviewing games has a high impact on improvement. Thanks to a review, you will be able to assess your ability to apply what you knows already and pin down flaws in your game.

You can have your games reviewed at the GTL.


Tamsin: There are three skills you have to master to get the most out of reviewing a game with an opponent or by yourself. One would hope that a teacher would apply them automatically:

1) Controlling Emotions If you have lost a game, it is important not to let feelings of regret prevent you from giving the review your full attention. You should console yourself with the thought that lost games teach you more than games you have won, so it is well worth putting in the effort of identifying mistakes and weak strategies. If you cannot control your feelings sufficiently, then wait until later, but don't omit the review (I could also add that if you cannot control your feelings then maybe you should take up another game).

2) Being Objective A common mistake on the losing side in a review is to try to show how they "should" have won the game. In chess parlance this is called trying to "win the post-mortem". A review will only do you good if you honestly seek mistakes and not if you seek to justify yourself.

3) Being Realistic I have seen many reviews go off into long branches that bear little resemblance to the game. To be sure it can be useful to show how a game might have developed if a certain path had been taken, but it is easy to take this too far and end up discussing a game that never happened. Try to keep to the main paths of the game itself and keep it real.


... and honesty. There are four skills you have to master ...



This is a copy of the living page "Review" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.