DieterVerhofstadt/BasicLawsOfGamesmanship

Many people care about their rank. Me too, although I can hate myself for it. It becomes much easier to climb up the ranking if you admit you care. It also becomes easier if you observe some basic laws of gamesmanship, before blaming another loss on your go skills:

1. Do not resign. Instead hang in there until your opponent loses on time or blunders under time pressure ^[1]
2. Do not lose on time ^[2]
3. Do not make silly mistakes. Just keep a certain concentration level.
   • Not drinking is important.
   • Not playing while half asleep is too.
   • Not playing while doing something else is too.
4. Do not make smart but equally devastating mistakes ^[3]. If you look for the exquisite move, instead of playing the normal move, you probably end up with a bad move.
5. Check your network connection and make sure you're playing during a stable period. ^[4]

Notes

[1] "He who blunders last, loses the game." This attitude can be regarded upon as not sportsmanlike. I say, explore the game to its fullest extent first, you can always become a gentleman later. Not resigning is the antidote for the many players who resign out of frustration with something that happened a few moves ago, or because of some undue benign attitude to grant the game to The Revered Opponent Who Was So Much Better Than Me. One should not be that submissive.

• Do a rational positional judgment, void of emotions.
• Explore the psychological advantage of coming from behind.
• Find out how to recover slowly from a disadvantage.
• Accept that your opponent may make mistakes too.
• Allow yourself to grab a win which may not be due to a maintained opening advantage.

[2] Don't play super-blitz and if you do, manage time rather than moves. Use your time too, don't get caught into the rhythm of the opponent.

[3] See also /the philosophy of mistakes.

[4] There is probably nothing I hate more than playing a move, watching my opponent run out of time, then getting a game result that it was me who lost on time.