Game Not Over: How to Micro-dose Defeat and Learn From Gaming

1. "Again?"

Let's start with "The Queen's Gambit." I'll try not to spoil the series for you, but I'll refer to the series throughout.

There's an amazing scene I'd like to talk about, half-way through episode 5. Beth Harmon sits down to play "just one round" of speed chess. You can watch the scene here.

Blitz is not usually treated as seriously as standard chess. Top players have been known to be dismissive of it - although they did participate in World Championships in the format. It's been said that for serious chess players, too much blitz "kills your ideas" and "rots the brain".

For mere mortals, though, I would say that there's something to be gained from the kind of ordeal Harmon is seen to subject herself to. Let me explain.

2. The terror of perfect

Starting things is scary. Finishing things is scary. Even writing this article freaks me out a little. What if I fail? What if it's not good enough? What if people are unhappy with me?

Part of this fear is due to how we're biologically wired. Seth Godin writes and talks about it, but we don't need books or charts to know the feeling: new, risky things are outside our comfort zone, and signal "danger" - even though, most of the time, there is no literal danger around.

The side effect of this is plain to see in the work we do, the way we teach, and the way we learn. More often than not, we play it safe. We stigmatise mistakes. We expect polished perfection - from ourselves, our learners, our colleagues and families. We want what's normal and what's comfortable. No alarms and no surprises.

Most of the time, this is enough to see us through. Except 2020 hasn't been "most of the time" for me, and for many others around me. "Perfect" is not on the table any more, and "safe" - well, that's debatable, too.

In a year where things which we treated as normal became risky, I think we risk losing any healthy relationship with risk. And that would be bad - for businesses, for ideas, for learning.

Is there a way to stop this from happening?

How about lots more video games?

3. My defeat delivery system

A Lichess server sets me up with another human within seconds - on my phone, no login needed, for free. We don't know each other, we just play a game of chess. Within ten minutes, the game is over. I suck at chess so I usually lose badly. But not always, and not as much as a year ago.

On my computer, MTG Arena delivers what Covid took away - Magic: The Gathering games with other people. Again, all my opponents are virtual. We're set up within seconds, and we play a game of Magic. I do a bit better here, but still not amazingly good: over half the time, I see the words "DEFEAT" in big capital letters across my screen. I keep playing, and move straight to another game - each game earns some in-app currency, sometimes it wins me new cards, and it helps me tune up my card deck.

And then, there's EDH - a multiplayer version of Magic which, in the old normal, was my go-to format. Sitting down at a table with three other strangers is just not happening these days. Instead, we have our Discord channels, our HD webcams - and with the help of some clever technology, we're able to put our good old-fashioned paper Magic cards to good use. The games last longer. There's banter over the voice chat, there's plenty of in-game politics. I do better here. But with three opponents, "I do better" means "I'm not usually the first one they knock out". And because this is a "meatier" format, with more cards available and more opponents, this means that spectacular mis-plays and mistakes are frequent and instantly punished.

I think, on average, I lose a game to a human being 20 times a day.

Which means that on any given day, I try to go through a version of what happened to Beth Harmon in the clip above.

4. The first draft of anything is ??

Hemingway may or may not have said that about his writing. I am certainly able to say it about most of the projects I've worked on. And I imagine this is true for most creative projects out there.

I have sat through meetings during which experienced editors expressed their dismay at how many mistakes there were in the first drafts, or layout proofs, or other early-stage iterations of any given project. These meetings, in themselves, sometimes felt like defeats.

I don't think it's possible to avoid mistakes in early stages of anything you do. I don't believe you can have an interesting life AND steer clear of defeat at the same time. And I don't suppose you would be able to avoid the other point of view, either - the folks who insist that brainstorming notes be perfectly typed and spellchecked, the ones who criticise the way in which your prototypes are using Comic Sans (hint: the reason to use Comic Sans in a prototype is TO MAKE IT LOOK UNFINISHED. It's a prototype!).

What I think you could do - and what I resolved to do - is build up a healthy immunity to rejection and defeat. The idea isn't original or new. Jia Jiang talks about it in his TED talk titled "What I learned from 100 days of rejection." And on a more complex level, Dr Carol Dweck's "growth mindset" theory incorporates failure and feedback into the process of growing a resilient mindset in learners.

5. "Again."

A good online chess server will go through your game with you, and its engine will be quick to point out the missed wins, mistakes, and blunders. Each defeat is a chance to learn some more. Within a few minutes, you can discover good moves you could have made, and traps you (or your opponent) fell into. But you need the defeat first - you need the thirty or forty moves which the engine can mull over with you.

Similarly, each Magic defeat is a chance to learn and improve. Sometimes it's as easy as getting a new card or two, and tuning up your deck. Sometimes it means coming back to the cards you own, and discovering new interactions among them. And for the longer games, it's about threat assessment - learning to be patient and hold the most potent solutions back, in anticipation of big problems coming later in the game. Again, for each of these, you need the mistakes, mis-played cards, defeats.

Treating defeat well is, in many ways, similar to managing an agile project successfully. Of course you're not going to "nail it" within your first iteration. Of course there will be mistakes and failures. The features you start out with will not necessarily be all the ones which will make it into the final product. You work, you deliver, you learn, and you go to work again. Nothing will be perfect, but if you focus on the right things, everything will ship on time and on budget. It's the early feedback and the repeated cycles of focused work which get you there - not an infallible, 100% ideal vision which everyone must reach without messing up once. And instead of encountering huge risks which come too late, you learn from early risks which are manageable as soon as you get back to work.

If you're Beth Harmon, a defeat can be a big deal - but for most of us, the stakes are much lower. Falling from No. 1 to No. 3 in the world is a shock we'll probably never need to deal with as individuals - more likely, it's from one-million-something to one-million-something-plus-one. This means that the benefits of defeat outweigh the drawbacks.

So here's my advice/dare: start finding bearable ways of getting your butt kicked.

6. Some good places to start

- Chess.com and Lichess.org are both great for beginner chess players. The former is very popular and great for in-depth analysis, but the premium version costs more. The latter is open source, and a great place to start if you want to learn the basics (its tutorials are amazing).

- MTG Arena is currently one of the best places to play Magic: The Gathering. You will learn how to play this fantasy card game very quickly thanks to its tutorial. The game has a really supportive community online. If you get serious about it, the cards (both the real and virtual ones) can get pricey - but there's plenty of mileage on MTGA with just the free decks you start with, or the ones win as prizes.

- Hearthstone is a good MTGA alternative. Similar fantasy vibes, but a lower learning curve - and really quite playable on a smartphone (MTGA needs a PC / Mac). Possibly a better option if you're not into all the heavy Magic lore - it's designed to be more lightweight and less serious. Again - getting really good stuff to play with is likely to cost you real money.

I'm always looking for more good games to play. Are there any I could try out - with you maybe? Let me know in the comments!

Good luck,

V

Photo by Hassan Pasha on Unsplash