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What I don't like is when I lose because of stupid mistakes on my end. I am insecure and think* that losing will cause my friends to think I am stupid/dumb/incapable. When a pair of dice is involved at least I can hide behind those as an explanation for my failings. I also don't like to continue to play when it has already become clear that I've lost.
* Well not think, because I know that I am not stupid and that my friends don't think of me like that. But I feel that way.
Are you really playing the game for what it is? Are you playing the game on the game's merits or based on what you'd like it to be?
The robber in Catan is due to randomness. But you also like to hide behind randomness. Deterministic games like chess are all you, and nowhere to hide from mistakes.
Randomness makes you angry, but it also makes you feel safer. What are the exact situations where randomness is detrimental. What are the exact situations where luck is beneficial. Try to be as specific (about the general case) as you can.
It takes different approaches to win one kind of game versus another. Do you feel like your score/game rank is deterministic, even if you're playing non-deterministic games? (I do this. It's my biggest cause of grief to mentally model a game as different than what it really is). You have to play the game you're playing. Games high on luck are not determined on a per-game basis, but as an average over many games. If you're good on average you'll rank high.
Every decision in life has two components to it: quality of decision, and random noise from the rest of the world. If you consistently make high quality choices you won't always get good outcomes, but in the aggregate you're moving upwards. Do you forget this when you're gaming?
I have a similar issue. Moreso online games. Sometimes I lose and don’t care, but other times it really affects my mood. I also tend to play more strategic games, where losing even moreso implies a lack of intelligence.
The solution that has worked for me this year is to delete/avoid the games that affect my mood, or play them very infrequently (bursts every few months).
Lately I just play D&D and the once a week binge on some computer strategy game. D&d has never made me feel like a sore loser. Usually I run the game, but even the times I’ve been a player and lost my character, sad would be the overwhelming emotion, not any sort of sore loser emotions. As for strategy games, when I get to the point that my emotions are affected, or I think I need to invest more time to get better, that’s when I realize how little the experience is really worth and move on to/refocus on something more important.
I sometimes purposefully choose to lose at games, because I don't care very much about winning, and I know that other people do. So, maybe that could be a motivation for trying to not be a sore loser? Knowing that if you give off that vibe other people might evince the soft discrimination of low expectations?
Life is war. It's not a battle, but a series of battles. And after the series of battles, some of which you win and some of which you lose, you die. So ultimately, you lose the war. Losing a battle here and there is preparation for losing the war. So if you think you're a sore loser now, just wait until you really fucking lose.
Life is war. It's not a battle, but a series of battles.
It is? I haven't noticed yet.
Being part of a something I can never fully understand, yet being continuously reminded of its beauty and unforgiving nature. Sounds like a dream where play is the reality.
There are sore losers and bad winners. I'm afraid America is both. Our continued involvement in Viet Nam is testimony to that. Because we historically equated winning with exceptionalism, we could not envision the possibility of losing. We actually disregarded empirical evidence to the contrary. Good winners knew that losing was always a possibility.
The best example I can think of this is the 1984 US Olympic Basketball team, The Dream Team, where it was a foregone conclusion that they would win the gold. The coach, Chuck Daly, engineered a scrimmage against a team of college players in which the team lost. He did this by poor substitutions and essentially keeping Michael Jordan on the bench. His point was to instill in his players that despite their exceptional talent, there was always a possibility of losing.
What I don't like is when I lose because of stupid mistakes on my end. I am insecure and think* that losing will cause my friends to think I am stupid/dumb/incapable. When a pair of dice is involved at least I can hide behind those as an explanation for my failings. I also don't like to continue to play when it has already become clear that I've lost.
* Well not think, because I know that I am not stupid and that my friends don't think of me like that. But I feel that way.
Personally, I have never once equated game mastery with intelligence. Even chess masters to me are more closely associated with high functioning autism than with practical intelligence, so the guys who can win multiple simultaneous games at the park may be proud of their skill but all I see is a grown man obsessing over a wooden board who probably can't tie his own shoes. And in any case, most social games are specifically designed with a degree of randomness to level the playing field so that no one person will take the fun out of it for others. Don't be that guy that does it anyway by being a sore loser.
When playing games with others, I generally recognize the situation not as a demonstration of skill but as a means for connecting with other people and I treat it accordingly. One of my strategies is to publicly stretch the rules whenever possible. Trading cards under the table with a young nephew is great fun, and finding the loophole that causes everyone to come together to argue for your disqualification (while tacitly acknowledging your result was superior) also makes for a good time. I'd rather be the guy everybody is keeping an eye on because they know I'm up to something than the smug winner or the sore loser. Have fun with it!
