What You've Learned about Yourself via Games

[Patrick]

In another group, someone mentioned that playing Go can be a sort of
Rorschach test for the individual: aspects of your personality or
approach to life show up in your patterns of play.

I noticed that when I played Go. For a while, I even kept a journal,
jotting down what lessons I learned from each game. One "note to
self" that I remember is, Don't bite off more than you can chew! I
had a tendency to get greedy and stake a claim to more territory than
I could actually secure. My game improved markedly when I worked past
that.

Have you learned anything in particular about yourself from playing
games?

I seem to keep learning and relearning lessons all the time.
Apparently I'm stubborn in some areas, and game playing (like life, I
guess) has a way of presenting a lesson time and time again until you
finally get it.

Lately my lesson seems to be, You can't get something for nothing.
All my life I've wanted to be able to kick back, relax, play a game
impulsively or whimsically, and still overcome serious opposition and
win. But it simply doesn't work. If there's serious opposition
(i.e., it's an evenly matched or challenging game), you have to work
for the win. But that irks me; it conflicts with my intention to just
sit back and do something fun and playful.

So, I keep making blunders and losing--and getting upset about it.
Then, when I calm down and take a sober look at the situation, I
realize that I had more game information available than I was willing
to stop and look at. Had I noticed all the information and reasoned
things through, I would have been able to make a better decision. But
I felt that reasoning would be too much work, so I skipped it. And of
course I paid the price.

I read a book on chess some months ago, and the author described an
incident his young son was involved in. The kid was on the verge of
winning a tournament, and he'd been playing well and making his dad
proud. But in the last game, he made a stupid move or two--far below
his skill level. After the game, his dad asked him what had happened,
and the kid said, "I can't think that hard all the time!" The author
said he was dismayed by that remark; to him, it was like Rembrandt
being nearly finished with a masterpiece, then impulsively splashing
paint all over the canvas. Yes, you do have to reason things through
all the time. If you let up, you lose.

Me, I'm a lot like the kid in that story. Even though I'm old enough
to know better, I still expect Lady Luck to step in and save me from
having to think so hard all the time. I get careless, because I
figure I'm just having fun playing a game. And next thing I know, I
get clobbered and wonder why. It feels terribly unfair. But it's
not.

Sometimes I'll blame the game. Long ago, I decided games like chess
and go weren't for me; I needed something with a chance element. But
I run into the same lessons in backgammon, dominoes, and cribbage.
You can't run away; sooner or later, you have to face yourself.

Another image of myself I caught in the "game mirror" years ago is
that of a patient researcher. I don't mind complex games, and I
actually enjoy looking up rules. Though I sometimes complain about
ASL nowadays, one of the best things about it was actually that big
rule book. There was always something to look up. Over the years,
I've also been attracted by multi-volume RPGs like AD&D. I never
really wanted to play such a game, but I liked the thought of being a
dungeon master and having a shelf full of books to reference and
create scenarios from. Frankly, I'd usually rather study or read
about a game than play one.

There's a limit to that too, however. And in one sense, I was really
hiding from something I didn't want to face. By keeping my nose in
the game manual, always working to learn the rules, I postponed
finding an opponent and sitting down to play a game. I'd tell myself
I just need to study the game a little more--then, someday, I'll be
ready to play it. But someday never comes.

Along with the big lessons, there are little psychological quirks that
pop up. One is some kind of self-sabotage. Last night, I was up late
playing Civilization Revolution on my DS. The game was going
especially well, and that doesn't always happen for me on King level;
so I decided to stay up and finish the game even though I should've
gone to bed. I was just a few turns from completing the United
Nations and winning a cultural victory. Nothing could possibly
prevent my winning. Except--

The battery died. And I hadn't saved the game. I played it straight
through without saving at all, and now there was no way to go back and
finish it. Grrr! It would've taken a few seconds to save the game,
but I couldn't be bothered. It's just like me.

So, enough about me. What are you like, and how does that show up in
your games?