
How to play with people who are better than you - vo2maxer
https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/Xc6GEBEAACgABJG_
======
dragontamer
Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're
better than you and keep losing.

Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you
want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then
keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on
your skill.

Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty much
any subject from now till the end of time. Deciding when to get off the
treadmill is just as important as deciding to stay on.

> Games of skill are less appealing if you know a certain person will always
> win.

I disagree. I will always lose to Magnus Carlsen in Chess. I will always lose
to my friends in (insert any FPS game here, I'm bad at all of them). I will
always lose to Mew2King in Super Smash Bros: Melee.

My inability to defeat the greatest players of a subject does NOT make the
game less appealing. Indeed, I often times seek out the challenge of stronger
players, especially when I'm explicitly trying to get better at the game.

Losing constantly by playing vs players who are better than you provides a
learning experience. You should find other players you can win against of
course: you'll never learn to win if you keep losing. But losing teaches you
what bad-habits you've formed from playing vs weaker players.

I think that's the key: losing all the time is unfun. But I can definitely
take "losing for a whole week" or "losing for a whole month" in a row,
especially if its for training. Finding players of lower skill, equal skill,
and higher skill, is important.

~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
> If you want to get better, train up.

This doesn't mesh with why lots of people play things. It's play. It might
just be a nice way to pass the time. I would rather play basketball against
someone my level than Steph Curry playing all out. I'm not playing to win or
even to get better (getting better is fun, but isn't the point). I just want
to have fun.

For many kinds of play, if you have to train for it, you may as well play
something else.

~~~
tluyben2
And I don't find some games fun anymore if you or anyone around the table goes
in for the kill; simple example that most people will know; monopoly. There
are strategies to almost surely win but it makes the game boring and even
annoying for everyone involved. So we usually added rules to prevent those
strategies. If someone 'is better at that' it means he/she is a boring/non-fun
player and no-one will play anymore after 1-2 games. In general; there are a
lot of games really not fun at all for people who always want to win no matter
what.

~~~
paulryanrogers
I thought the point of Monopoly is to learn that monopolies are not fun, or
fair

~~~
logfromblammo
The point of Monopoly is to make money for the owner of the trademark, and
condition people to buy games based on inertia, advertising, and nostalgia
rather than complexity, balance, or fun.

~~~
kazagistar
Fortunately we have a plethora of much better games now. I think monopoly will
be a quirk of history soon. How many boomers have never played monopoly (and
hopefully never will) because they have so many other games to play.

~~~
setToNull
I don't understand. Boomers? People born between 1946 and 1964? I think most
Boomers in North America and Europe have played Monopoly at least once.
"Monopoly has been translated into 47 languages. It's played in 114 countries.
It's sold more than 275 million copies. Hasbro prints $30 billion in Monopoly
money each year, and well more than $3 trillion has been printed since 1935."
-CNN [https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/living/feat-monopoly-80th-
ann...](https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/living/feat-monopoly-80th-
anniversary/index.html)

------
dorkwood
I never liked the idea of explicitly changing the rules in order to make a
game more fair for new players. If you become accustomed to changing the rules
whenever you find yourself outmatched, and then find yourself in a situation
where the rules can't be changed for whatever reason, then you're not going to
enjoy yourself.

It's much more enjoyable for everyone, in my opinion, to play by the same
rules as the group, but judge your own performance by a different set of rules
that you keep in your own head. Maybe try to beat your own previous score, or
set yourself a personal challenge -- something like "take one of my opponent's
pieces" or "make the longest word in the game".

It's entirely possible to enjoy playing a game that you have little chance of
winning, it just requires some creativity.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
Many boards games attempt to make things fun even if you’re losing.

One of the best games for this is Concordia, where you don’t count up the
points until the end. You always feel that you have a chance. Once you get
fairly good however, you can scan the board state and do some rough
guesstimating to see who is in the lead.

Other games can be quite brutal. You make one wrong move and you know you’re
in for 2.5 hrs of pain and there’s nothing you can do about it.

~~~
Balgair
> You make one wrong move and you know you’re in for 2.5 hrs of pain ...

I mean, why continue at that point? That just sounds silly.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Not a _Settler of Catan_ fan, then?

~~~
logfromblammo
I'm not aware of any move that makes it impossible for any one player to win
_Settlers of Catan_ , while still extending the game to 2.5 hours. There are
at least four basic strategies that work to win, and it's nearly impossible to
block all of them to the other players while still pursuing one yourself.

I have seen people win without ever building a third settlement.

~~~
Tarsul
i think the point of the parent is that the settlement phase at the start of
the game can be pretty decisive. E.g. some people always choose crossroads
with numbers that have low probably (like 11 or 3) or with only 2 aligned
fields (instead of 3). Of course, you might still win the game but you're
problaby too annoyed about your decisions in the first 5 minutes of the game
than playing and having fun (and having a chance at winning). Especially in
games where you collect ressources to gain victory points, making the wrong
choices at the start can be very devastating (because of the runaway effect).

~~~
logfromblammo
If you choose a weak starting position, it's not going to take 2.5 hours for
your opponents to win in _Settlers of Catan_. But if you do have an obviously
weaker board position, no one will put the robber on your 2, 3s, 11s, or 12,
except in rare situations. That's part of the built-in handicapping for those
with obviously stronger board positions. Those 5/36 rolls don't actually
produce 5/36 of the time, because most of the time the robber is blocking one
of them.

If you choose a weak initial position, the expansion-first player gains an
advantage over the city-first player, especially in a 3-player game. And they
will both know that your only option is a card-first stealth victory. The
latter is usually only viable in a very balanced 4-player game.

If you don't understand probability for 2d6 dice rolls, yeah, you're going to
have a bad time in a lot of games, some of them lasting 2.5 hours or more. And
if you haven't bothered learning that, why would you learn from the stronger
opponents that you play?

------
siffland
Years ago i used to go bowling with a few friends, i would get like 80 or 90
points and they would get around 225ish. Several months later i was up to
getting around 200 points per game. Granted it was all for fun, but just
playing with them made me a better bowler (i have not been bowling in a decade
now so i would probably be getting around 100 points again).

So yeah i lost, but it made me better. As long as you are aware of your skill
set vs. someone else's and you wont let it consume you i don't see it as a bad
thing (assuming the other player is not a complete jerk).

~~~
mochomocha
How do you know your increase was specifically because of them and not
practice only?

~~~
TheGallopedHigh
Likely observing how they handle specific situations, how their technique is
etc

------
DrScientist
It's about game balance and design.

If I was to play tennis against a professional, it wouldn't really be tennis,
it would be a game of 'can I get anywhere near to returning their first shot'.

I'd have to play that 'mini-game' for a long time before I could play proper
tennis with such a person ( where tactics of the rally come in ).

Obviously in reality the professional player would ease up - cos actually just
hitting balls and watching me pick them up isn't fun for them either.

Some games are more naturally balanced that others - computer game designers
often put huge effort in this area.

Really successful games like football ( soccer to some ) have great balance
built in. That's why the FA cup has small teams occasionally beating big teams
- to score a goal, you typically have to win a _series_ of reasonably balanced
encounters - even Messi can be tackled by me.

~~~
WhompingWindows
You think you can tackle Messi without committing a foul? Keep in mind he's a
stereotypical small striker, very high speed and acceleration, he dodges
world-class athletes routinely...

~~~
DrScientist
By no means every time, but actually sometimes yes.

If you look at professional teams, most of the time defenders win the 1:1
battle. That's why in 90 minutes a win of 3-0 is a good score!

Obviously in an actual game, it's more complex than that - a lot of defending
is about denying opportunity to shoot rather than out and out tackling.

I reckon I could get in the way on occasion...

Remember the attacker has the disadvantage of having to move the ball, not
just run, while the defender is free to move without the ball.

That's, in part, what creates the balance.

~~~
oAlbe
This reminds me of that viral survey that went around not long ago asking
people if they thought they could win a set against Serena Williams and the
result being a huge amount of responders saying yes.

Unless you played soccer at least semi-professionally in some small league
team for at least some part of your not so distant past, there is just no way
you are gonna win a 1v1 with Messi, either by committing a foul or not.

If you watch some scrim games during the off season, you can find games were a
top tier team plays against minor-er league teams, and you can see the
difference in skills. It's like they play two different games.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Yeah exactly, the pride of this person is just silly. Unless he played at a
top D-I school and did very well, there's no way he could successfully tackle
the ball from Messi in 100 tries...I'd give a solid D-I defender a couple of
tackles on Messi in all of those 100, the rest Messi would just easily dodge
away, control the ball, create space, and then burn them or pass away from the
inevitable double team.

It's like me in my 5th year of coding claiming I could out-code Linus
Torvalds...like what?!?!

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

~~~
catacombs
Bananagrams is a great game, especially for people who want to improve their
word-generating skills for a slower game of Scrabble.

------
Kaibeezy
In grad school, I had access to a pool table and played nearly every day with
a classmate who was already highly skilled. We were very competitive, and soon
equally matched.

A couple of years later, after going separate ways, we met up at a pool hall.
After a few games, it wasn’t even close.

Neither of us had played much for a few years. The difference was my friend’s
sharp skills had deteriorated, whereas my advantage had often been from taking
“creative” higher-risk/higher-reward shots—a “skill” that didn’t suffer as
much from lack of practice.

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

~~~
munmaek
It really depends on how good the player is. I have played people in smash
where the skill gap was so wide I could have just put my controller down and
it wouldn't have made a difference. I literally lost a match in a tournament
where I didn't, _couldn 't_, touch the enemy once. I was probably the lowest
seed in that tournament, he was the #1 seed, and was one of the top 5 players
of the game.

I normally like playing better players because it forces me to learn and stop
using lazy habits that work on worse players, but it's hard to learn anything
useful when I'm getting crushed so bad like that. Instead, reflecting and
continuing to play with people near my level until I improve enough to revisit
that player is a better option for personal growth.

~~~
pkamb
Which version of Smash was that?

~~~
munmaek
Super Smash Bros. Melee

------
WhompingWindows
Starcraft is an incredibly challenging game. I've been playing SC:RM, that's a
remastered version of Brood War, the original expansion for SC1. The MMR
system is not great because there aren't many players with which to find an
even match, so I often get SPANKED in 3-4 minutes, especially by Protoss, with
me playing Terran.

Still, there is nothing so instructive as a spanking in a balanced game. If I
played 100 games vs that guy... There are little roadblocks the whole way that
I can learn and conquer, which would RARELY be exposed by another bad player
on my own level.

Here's all the ways you need to play in a TvP gasless expand build: can you
scout their base with an SCV? Can you identify it's ranged-dragoon 2gate (and
not reaver drop or early 3rd or DT rush or air rush)? Can you get your bunker
up in time to prevent the goon rush? Can you repair the bunker constantly with
the right number of SCVs? Can you do all this while teching to siege mode and
tanks? Can you keep those tanks alive if Toss dives with 4 goons to pick the
tank? Can you then get your third base up, which is just as technical as
holding the initial goon rush?

Playing vs way better players than you is the fastest way to improve, but it's
also the most ego-crushing, so you simply need to leave ego at the door and
acknowledge your skill-set is lower and your experience is lower. Great lesson
for life!

------
vnorilo
The handicap in Go [1] works amazingly well. I have had enjoyable games with
dan-level players despite being at best conversant at the game.

That said, I've also enjoyed such games immensely with no handicap, despite no
prospect of winning at all. In most games you can have some partial success
and psychological reward despite losing the game.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_(go)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_\(go\))

~~~
Doxin
The thing that makes go fun for me _even while losing_ is that if you lose the
whole game you've still got a lot of smaller skirmishes that you've either won
or learned from. Losing a skirmish in go makes it very easy to go "Well what
should I have done differently here?" and come up with a good answer.

It's different from a game like risk in that way. If you lose a skirmish in
risk there's basically nothing you can learn from that since the amount of
random involved just obscures any influence you have yourself. At the end of a
game of risk I'm sat there having no idea what I did wrong, and no idea how to
do better next time.

------
anonymousDan
I always thought that was one of the nice things about golf. The handicap
system means you can have a wide variety of skill levels playing in the same
competition with everyone having a reasonable chance of winning.

~~~
beefield
Personally, I find that stupid. If you want a chance to win, do not play
against Tiger woods but play against your peers at your club and have
different tiers so that the better players seek to not play in the games where
the not so good ones play.

~~~
cableshaft
Well, sometimes a local league just isn't that big.

Like I remember when I was in a bowling league as a kid that was just whoever
signed up to be in it at that one bowling alley.

We had a guy in the league that eventually went Pro and I remember watching
him score his first perfect 300 game in person way back then, but there was
people like me that were just ok. I think the highest my average got up to was
around 130, but i can't really remember. I know I had a 197 game once. In
contrast, the future Pro's average was something like 230 (I think), a full
100 points difference.

But my team would sometimes play against the future Pro's team. I'm pretty
sure his team always creamed us, even with the handicap, but the handicap at
least made it so we were able to beat other teams that were significantly
better than us. And if we consistently played well enough we were beating
other people our handicap would change.

It made it so there was actually some tension from both sides, and a desire
for both sides to play as best as they could, instead of the obviously better
player to maybe let things slip a tiny bit or for us to get frustrated and
just toss the ball down there without trying.

It also made it so you didn't have a teammate that got too sore if your skill
levels were significantly different. Like if I was actually terrible but was
paired to be on a team with someone decent, they wouldn't hate me because I
would always make us lose a matchup. Instead my handicap would make it so we
could still be somewhat competitive.

Granted you were ultimately always competing with yourself, trying to get a
better score, but it's another layer that adds to the fun of the game. I
haven't been a part of a league in at least 25 years, but sometimes I miss it.

And even in this setup there's still tiers. Like it's not like anyone ever
said "yeah, let's send this average for a kid player to a professional league
championship and see how well they do!", but there's different skill levels
for the players in every tier as well.

~~~
nathancahill
Yeah, I play on a couple APA pool leagues and the handicap system for 8-ball
and 9-ball makes it so pros and beginners can play against each other and
mostly have a good time.

------
shultays
(disclaimer I am not a good chess player)

In high school I was playing chess with someone better than me and my plan was
to trade equal pieces as much as possible because I am bound to make
worse/stupid mistakes than more he does and because of that I wanted to move
end game as fast as possible.

It actually worked and it ended in tie! I still remember the end game, it was
amazing

[http://prntscr.com/q5z36e](http://prntscr.com/q5z36e) (it was roughly like
this, can't remember exact positions)

I was white, I think the last move was I moved my pawn and declared tie

~~~
learnstats2
This is closely related to the chess strategy of 'simplification'.

If you are 'winning' (here this works for your idea of winning), it's good to
trade pieces to get to the end game quicker while retaining the advantage.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
As an aside, if you play games competitively and you want to get better you
should _always_ seek better players to play against. That's how you improve
your game: you set the challenge just above your current level. The "just"
part sorts itself out because players significantly more advanced will not
find it very challenging to play against someone much weaker, so you 'll get
fewer games against them anyway.

Another thing is to play people you don't know and find new playing partners
often. That helps you avoid getting stuck in a rut.

------
bitL
"With ‘fairness’ built in, everyone has an equal chance of winning without
compromising their playing style."

This must be a joke, right? What's the point of playing games? To feel good
about oneself?!

~~~
Juliate
The point of playing is ... playing. :) It's the journey. Not the win or loss.

~~~
bitL
So if I use a random number generator as an "advisor" for my part, am I
guaranteed to win regardless? Like a social club where everybody gets to win
and with it their own medal and certificate? In other words, playing =
socializing, performance, tricks, effort being meaningless?

------
kleer001
Seems out of the scope of the article which was mostly about constructed board
games, but I would have loved a mention of the most fundamental and ancient
form of game... wrestling, aka rough housing or rough and tumble play.

[https://cognitioneducation.me/2013/07/25/a-time-and-a-
place-...](https://cognitioneducation.me/2013/07/25/a-time-and-a-place-for-
play-part-2/)

------
tachion
Everything else aside, Welcome Collection is an awesome place! If you're
art/architecture nerd, make sure you visit to see their kinda famous stairs,
they can look like that from certain angles:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/149993730@N05/32374727987/in/d...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/149993730@N05/32374727987/in/dateposted-
public/)

------
kstenerud
"Snakes and Ladders requires a level of manual dexterity"

This seems an odd thing to say. The only "manual dexterity" you need is to be
able to throw the dice.

~~~
cableshaft
I design board games and play a ton of them, and this threw me also. I don't
see how the author thinks there is manual dexterity to Snakes and Ladders.

A Dexterity game is a category of board games, and they all involve your
ability to physically manipulate components in a way where you could
potentially screw it up by misjudging the action you take, is my
understanding.

There's no way to throw dice in a way where it doesn't give you some sort of
result, even if it's not the result you want. If that's all it took to be a
Dexterity game, than tens or hundreds of thousands of games with dice in them
are now Dexterity games (and currently on sites like BoardGameGeek, they're
not).

------
vsyu
Interesting take! I know a bunch of people who don't like to play games
because they think it's stressful and put too much pressure on themselves to
win, therefore games aren't "relaxing." But I always think playing with people
who are better than you make you smarter even if you're losing. And though it
all, at least you're still learning and bonding.

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

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

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

------
thunderbong
This is probabley a bit off topic, but for me, the James Carse book, "Finite
and Infinite Games" is the last word on all games!

[https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-
Carse/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-
Carse/dp/1476731713/)

------
chadlavi
Dang, that game Yogi sounds very fun, but doesn't seem to be available in the
US.

------
jerednel
you need to be crushed in order to know what is possible. but you should also
go against people who are similar/worse than you. ranking systems are good at
that.

jiu jitsu is a good example of this. the belt rankings indicate
experience/skill and give you an idea of where people are in training. if i
just steamroll day-ones it is helpful to a degree. people of similar
experience will give me a good fight that will allow us both to make mistakes
that we can both capitalize on. but if i get manhandled by higher ranks i can
see the possibilities and get ideas for piecing together holes in my game.

------
izzydata
I find that it is more relevant for people to learn how to play with people
that are worse than them. Not everything needs to be a competition and the
goal is't inherently to get good at things that are for fun.

------
jhanschoo
> Non-orthogames do tend to involve certain skills that players need to have
> or share in order to play (Snakes and Ladders

This confused me for a bit. Snakes and Ladders is an orthogame; one selects a
winner based on agreed-upon rules.

------
DomreiRoam
One feature i like in go (weiqi , baduk) is that you can have an handicap
system so it is possible to enjoy a game with a weaker or stronger adversary.

------
igor47
the author is focused on finite games, which are games that you play to win.
but it's interesting to think about applying the same logic to infinite games,
where the goal is to keep playing forever.

For instance, capitalism is a game that most players assume we'll just keep
playing. How do you deal with some players having an advantage? Currently, the
advantage only compounds (literally, ie compound interest). What if instead,
the game became more difficult for those players, as discussed in the article?

~~~
michaelscott
To continue the game theory tilt, the problem with making the game harder as
the player advantage increases is that it disincentivises the player from
seeking advantage at all.

In the theoretical game of "capitalism" this sounds like a good idea, but in
the real world a government that imposes these kinds of game restrictions
through something like taxes only forces the advantaged players to pull out of
the "game" completely (a nett negative for those reliant on their advantage
long term) and move their advantage to another "game".

This isn't necessarily a bad thing though, so long as the vast majority of
players still in the game have enough resource to continue playing
comfortably.

~~~
dragonwriter
> but in the real world a government that imposes these kinds of game
> restrictions through something like taxes only forces the advantaged players
> to pull out of the "game" completely

Given that there is plenty of evidence that relative deprivation is a major
source of disutility, getting them to exclude themselves from the social
milieu in which other people exist would be a net win, though less than that
of them staying and complying. But, objectivist fantasy novels aside, there's
not a lot of evidence that that's a significant effect in the real world.

The people that are actually most successful in modern society understand the
role society plays in the utility they derive from success a lot better than
some of the wannabes that imagine how they would deal with similar success.

~~~
michaelscott
I largely agree, but would just clarify that the players in any economy,
capitalist or not, can be both people and companies/legal entities. The more
globally oriented modern society means that any player of sufficient resource
can implement multiple, compartmentalised strategies for various aspects of
that resource (eg. various taxes, corporate structure, government incentives)
under differing rulesets.

If a ruleset becomes too onerous (which there is evidence for in modern
settings like Zimbabwe or Venezuela) then a player may decide that the utility
of the society is not worth the loss in resource and remove themselves from a
game which enforces such a ruleset. In all other cases though I agree
completely with your insight.

------
ggm
No mention of go and it's handicap system. I once watched 12 year old Japanese
girl wipe the floor with an Australian friend with ranking in the Australian
go scene, in a go club behind Tokyo station.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
_Maybe you decide not to care about starting at the same level. That’s usually
an easy fix. The strategy game Go, for example, gives weaker players extra
stones on the board to start, allowing both players to try their hardest and
feel like they have a chance of winning._

~~~
ggm
Before posting I tried word search in my tablet browser and missed it. I guess
in the game of criticism I just.. lost.

~~~
fredoliveira
But why would you even try going for criticism of an article before even
reading it?

~~~
ggm
I speed read. I didn't see go. I went word search for go, didn't find it. But,
a fair comment. Critique demands care.

~~~
sethammons
Is speed reading just skimming?

~~~
munmaek
Speedreading is something used by delusional people who think that reading is
just inputting words as fast as possible. Slowreading (taking your time to
fully understand and reflect on what you read) needs to become a thing. But
that isn't as ~distinguished~ as saying "I can read at X words/min" or "I read
Y novels/year".

Skimming is useful, because you don't necessarily want to read an entire page
if you're looking for one thing. Wikipedia pages are an example of where you
might want to skim until you find the relevant section you're looking for.

In fact I skim many articles on HN to decide if they're worth reading or not.
If they are, then I go back and slowread the entire thing before making a
comment.

~~~
ggm
I originally wrote skim. I changed it to speed. I therefore lost again since
speed reading is less worthy than skimming which is less worthy than slow
reading.

But, I am winning at losing. Nobody can take that away from me.

