When to Not Give Up

One of the major lessons of Go is when to give up. Playing in an area in which you have no hope of acquiring is not merely futile, it is counterproductive, because a) you lose more points in lost stones and b) each play represents a lost opportunity to play elsewhere.

In other words, the lessons Go teaches us about giving up come with several caveats:

1) That we are absolutely sure that what we've given up on is totally lost
2) That trying anyway is counterproductive, or even more harmful
3) That the energy spent on a lost cause is robbing us of resources better spent elsewhere that will actually do us good

Item number one is the hardest one to wrap your head around. All of the inspirational thinking in our world teaches us exactly the opposite. The game isn't over until it's over. You never know what you can do until you try. Great geniuses can accomplish what others consider impossible.

The funny part is that they're right. The game isn't over until it's over - that's because you have nothing better to do with your time anyway, so playing it out and hoping for a million to one chance doesn't represent any lost opportunity. You never know what you can accomplish until you try - because the evaluation about what is absolutely lost is often premature. Accomplishing the impossible - because some people don't seem to follow the rules.

I find these latter people to be the most annoying, actually. I have a friend who took various illicit drugs in high school and college while maintaining a straight A average and doing all sorts of extra curricular activities. He slept around without causing any major social problems or contracting any diseases. He smokes one cigarette a year and has never gotten addicted to anything.

So sue me. I still don't condone cigarettes, drugs, and promiscuous sex just because some few weirdos can beat the odds. Naturally, this person thinks it was a great experience and doesn't think fooling around with these things is as bad as others make it out to be.

Another seemingly blessed person is Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, who claims to be the first person to ever recover from a debilitating speech problem, from which no one else has ever recovered, by sheer force of will. In previous posts he talks about all of the other odds he has overcome, despite everyone around him telling him that he can't do it. He always does.

Is he an inspirational story for the rest of us? Or a freak, whose inspiration will lead others into attempting, and then failing, the impossible?

Although I would like to condemn him to being a freak because I don't like his bloated ego, all of his persistence stories never actually violated any of the three above rules: either what he tried to accomplish wasn't really impossible, or his attempts didn't make things worse, anyway, or his efforts didn't represent a waste that could have been better used elsewhere. He tried various techniques to regain his voice, because why not? And he succeeded.

One other point needs to be made regarding giving up: often people fail at things simply due to lack of persistence. 99% of people won't accomplish X because they get discouraged by the fact that 99% of people won't accomplish it. The 1% who succeed are sometimes the 1% who are willing to continue after the attempt becomes less popular and then find themselves with more space on the playing field. The 99% self-selected themselves to failure.

As to when to really recognize that something is not worth the effort because it is an absolutely lost cause: either you really know it to be true from experience, or you are happy to direct your efforts elsewhere, regardless of whether it's true or not.

Games

I tried Lexicon again with my daughter and reconfirmed my belief that word based card games are simply too easy, as it is very easy to meld words from a handful of letters.

I also taught Go to a non-gamer friend. She bemoaned her lack of understanding what she was doing throughout the game. I told her that that was normal. We will see if she asks to play again.

I am working my way through the Go based anime series Hikaru No Go via the magic of YouTube.

Links

Baby Blues is becoming a favorite of mine for board game related linking. In the latest, Hammie explores the nature of cooperative games.

The Huffington Post posts a nice article about a parent finally cluing in to the positive aspects of video gaming. (via Raph)

Sinister Dexter asks about museums of gaming and gets a batch of wonderful replies. Check out the link to see a dozen links to museums or museum displays on gaming around the world.

Yehuda

Weekend Gaming

I went for the weekend to my parent's house, along with my daughter Tal and her friend, and Rachel.

Spit

Tal is a game player. She likes all the standard games, as well as some non-complicated Euros, like Settlers of Catan, The Menorah game (she loves, as do all of her friends), and Havoc.

Most of the time, however, when she is not playing with me, she is playing Chinese Spit with her friends. This weekend we played: The Menorah Game once, where Tal won and I was about to win on my next move; and regular Spit, which she made me play with her friend. Tal claims that she hasn't beaten me, yet. I was feeling particularly slow, because I am still sick, so I lost to her friend.

Actually, it came down to single card. I was already down to no flip pile when I missed a single card play. Her friend emptied her hand without my having a chance. The next round, she didn't have a draw pile, and it again came down to single card. I was left with 8, and she with 10. Naturally a 9 eventually flipped up, rather than a 7 or J. We both hit the pile at the same time, but my card somehow ended up stuck halfway into the pile, whereas hers was correctly located on top. Oh, well.

Lexicon

I brought along a few other games. One was Queries and Theories, which I though might interest my father who had once been a computer science teacher, but he doesn't remember anything about natural languages. Another was Lexicon. Lexicon is an old game, one of I don't know how many that are designed around the idea of cards that each have letters on them, and with which you need to form words.

The basic problem with card games with letters whose rules simulate various standard card games is that it is much, much easier to meld words than it is to meld the numbers in a standard deck of cards. True, it takes a little more thinking, but so many more combinations can be used that it is rare that someone doesn't go out within two or three turns.

In this case, the game is a melding rummy. You are dealt ten cards, and on your turn you can either a) lay a word, b) add to an existing word, c) swap cards with an existing word, or d) swap cards with the deck or discard pile. First one out gains no points, and the rest gain the face value of their cards (common letters have higher values). Players are eliminated as they go over 100. Last one standing wins.

As I said, if the game really played out like Gin Rummy, where ten or twenty turns occurred each round, it would be a grand game. As it is, someone always goes down within two or three turns, which makes the game fairly uninteresting. Still, it is fun playing around with the anagramming, and I would play it again, casually.

The game comes with a rulebook that contains another twenty variations, all simulating regular card games, such as Lexicon Bridge, Lexicon Whist, and so on.

Anyway, Rachel and Mom and I played a few rounds, and then my Mom and I played a few more two player later in the day.

Scrabble and Three-Player Bridge

After Mom and I both got bored with Lexicon, I suggested Scrabble as a better alternative, and then won by an embarrassing amount. I scored 395.

Later, my Dad actually volunteered to play three handed bridge with my Mom and me. Three handed is bridge extremely gutted, but still ok if you are not really expecting "bridge", per se.

There are variations, but ours is that eight cards of the fourth hand are turned up. Each player bids, and whomever wins the bidding gets the fourth hand as dummy. The remaining five cards are turned up after the lead is made, and always turn out to contain four cards of some suit one of the defenders was bidding on, at which point they make some pithy remark about how "if they had only known!" That's why it's not really bridge: no partnership bidding, no control over the contract, and no information about where the other cards lie.

I find it generally useful to be quite aggressive when bidding three player. However, you can get a feel for how many values are underneath by listening to the other player's first bids. If one of them passes, odds are that there is a lot under there. If everyone is bidding aggressively, odds are that not much is under there.

We played a few hands.

Yehuda