The Difference Between Your Opponent Losing And Your Winning

    Keywords: Culture & History

When I played Chess in High School, it was considered very important to recognise the difference between when you won and when your opponent lost. Of course if all you care about is winning and losing, then by all means celebrate when you win. But if you plan on improving, don't become gleefull when you win because of your opponents ineptness.

Aside from poor sportsmanship, rejoicing when you win because of your opponents ineptness hides your own weaknesses. The same weaknesses which would have caused you to lose the game if your opponent actually knew what he was doing.

So those who wish to improve at go (or any other game) quickly, will learn to know the difference between their winning and their opponents losing.

Thad


Tderz: The simple Go-proverb "Who wins has the wrong opponent !" says it all - it confirms your point.

I give beginners/students of Go another saying as advice: "Lose your first 50 (100) games as fast as possible". The implied meaning is that the improvement in skill is so much more important than any (later meaningless) win in the beginning of our learning career.


ilan: How strong did people at your High School become? When I was playing chess in High School, any win was considered worthwhile, especially if you managed to swindle your opponent, (the ultimate example was someone accepting to double the stakes when his flag was down). I got pretty strong playing this way.


This is a copy of the living page "The Difference Between Your Opponent Losing And Your Winning" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2007 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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