Jun

12

Most sports games are fought to win early and decisively, given a choice. This painfully obvious comment alludes to the fact that the middle game and end game can thereby be played with less risk for the winning side. However, this must be measured against the opening winners desire to play all out throughout, just with less overextension, not merely maintaining the advantage. Don't let up on your capacity or talent. Some games and teams will require a full force stance, depending on the point lead and in order to play well. What I suggest is not to rest on a gain. I only suggest to reconfigure the risk/reward ratio. Otherwise, playing a completely defensive strategy will destroy the advantage. Further, risk/reward can allow a highly aggressive stance and be defensive by inducing your opponent to expend more than usual amounts of energy and exasperation trying to defend offputting attacks. Inducing is aggressive. These attacks will accompany random, not constant defensive moves on the aggressor's part, allowing just enough of a hedge and freeing up energy from an overly or hardened defensive posture to a game of overall nimbleness, less probabilistic and freeing up energy to explode at will. Thus, the risk/reward ratio is not all about chasing points, but allows for a game whereby opposing points can be thwarted. This alleviates the need and obvious static (stasis?) energy of a defense only strategy, thereby giving the opponent one's game plan.

Entice your opponent to play your game: To play drunken martial arts, which requires enticing your opponent to engage on your terms, running out the clock, angering your opponent, retreating or advancing to entice your opponent to your strengths, or limiting your opponent's moves, , while maintaining full force and adaptability in maintaining a defensive posture also come to mind. (Ali trained to take many a pounding to train for an otherwise superior Foreman in '74 or whatever). One's tactics are freed from having to score. Let the opponent, out of sorts and off their game score for you, in which you make easier points, thus conserving one's energy. The corollary, making one's opponent pay big to even get a point or taking a hit is very offensive. But these are only for the very proficient. These tactics under an overall strategy require or expect the deemed defense having to move, not always true in stocks. (Though Buffet said one can swing when one wants; 4 balls will not get you to first in the stockmarket). An exceptional opponent will not take the bait, but circumstances can force their hand. These thoughts touch on defense as offense. We all know the opposite axiom. As one aside, I'd like to see the drunken martial opponent, and this takes on many variations, in boxing, fencing, racing and war, in which the opponent is enticed to overexthend themselves to the winner's advantage, not move in such a fashion into the opponent's traps. Others may have specific games in mind. I am having the problem of analogizing a specific game; a discrete event compared to the market moves over a term. However, the market moves comprise many a game.

Some of what I consider the more continuous sports are soccer, lacrosse, basketball, hockey, fencing, boxing and tennis, in which one can morph from an aggressive stance, to a defensive one on the fly. Of course, this applies to all sports on a limited degree, like baseball and football where a meeting is called prior to a play. I like the former because the action is more often in play than other games, and therefore the strategy and tactics can be applied with more facilty in real time, of course given prior strategizing. Maybe it's like a free form jazz requiring excellent individual talent that understands the other players, compared to an orchestra with a conductor playing 30 second songs cumulatively. Both comprise professionals. We know the market does both as well.

This writing has suggested employing defensive offense, for example keeping the accent on making high percentage shots that tire your opponent mentally and physically. Do not take undue risks in shooting (offense)and upgrade one's focus on preventing the rival from scoring (defense), rather than setting up your next shot. An advantage within or from a game is anticipating further moves or a later game. This allows for other strategies/tactics to surprise, accumulate to disorient, and induce the opponent to weaken lines in order to defend against all possible attacks. Continuing the earlier discrete game, the early winner can devote more resources to defending the perceived advantage with the above considerations in mind. In fact, the simplistic notion of games is not to take undue risks (this assumes a lifetime of understanding) once victory is achieved, while of course playing all out under revised risk/reward calculations. To confuse things, a good winner will continue to play all out, as that is their best game for cadence and alertness. As a warning, many have lost sitting on a win, confusing defense with merely running out the clock. Resting can beckon atrophy, thereby inviting ineptness.

Another is offensive defense. A penny saved is a penny earned. I would submit that a penny saved costs less than a penny earned oftentimes. Drive to the utmost, but how many feet or seconds does another pit stop cost? Can it be skipped with good preparation and execution being the same car, or is it better to plan for a stop in order to have your best car on the track? A lot of movement in life, like mechanics, etc., has exponential costs, like a rocket liftoff compared to cruising, and the same for other bursts requiring torque, like moving onto the beltway. Make your opponent use torque that require more energy and force pit stops that cost time.

Unlike the stock market, in discrete games, a 2 point win is equivalent to a 50 point win. Can we say that if the 2 point wins accumulate, they will become 50 points and be, just a little little bit easier, to come by?

Defensive offense and offensive defense: do they exits, does it matter, is it semantics? It was just a way to make a point and hint that things occur simultaneously.

In sum, winning big early, frees up an added dimension of facileness, controlling time and moves of your opponent, while increasing one's own efforts to thrive and grow toward an increasing advantage. Maybe all games should be played this way throughout, but an early advantage seems to change the risk/reward analysis. The predators are able to employ this. A good follow up would be to depict what the purported prey would do to become the eventual winner. —Maybe the same? but they seem to have less reward in creating a win from behind by just maintaining the stasis. Advisors often suggest that increased risk is not the answer, until Hail Mary time - at least in a discrete game.

Allan Millhone looks at it from the Checkers perspective:

I am packing and getting ready to head to Grove City, Pa. for a yearly tournament there. There will be plenty of stiff competition with our Three-Move Restriction World's Champion and other top Masters. In tournaments my eyes scan the board akin to surfing and try to find a safe line of play. Like a good wave to ride safely to the King row (water's edge at the beach) . The surface of the Checker board at times can be very smooth as you coast towards an easy draw . Other times the ride is bumpy and can be quite turbulent as your opponent( like the waves) can force you off into uncharted waters. The Market trader needs to be wary and look ahead at all times for ever changing Market conditions much like the waves for the Surfer endlessly shift back and forth. The Checker board starts out even for both sides with twelve pieces each, but soon after the calm subsides and the waters of the board begin to swell . The Surfer tries to Master the wave as the Market trader tries to tame the Market Mistress and gain the upper hand.

Tommy Wiswell said: "Look twice before you move."

Steve Ellison writes:

In many competitive endeavors, simply making fewer mistakes wins many games. Mistakes I have made in the markets include:

- Failing to be aware of changes in trading hours

- Using a limit order to try to save a few dollars when I really did want to enter the trade regardless

- Failing to be fully prepared (with orders placed in advance when feasible) for any events that might set up a favorable trading opportunity

- Entering a trade without knowing exactly what I would do if price moved up, down, or sideways

- Deviating from my trading plan

- Using too much leverage

Roy Longstreet wrote in 1967 in Viewpoints of a Commodity Trader:

Did you watch the Packers whip Kansas City in the Super Bowl? I did and was much impressed by the professional way in which they performed. They did not beat themselves by making mistakes.

A professional makes fewer mistakes than others. That is why he is a professional. He may not have more ability than another but he is superior because he has trained himself not to make mistakes.

I was particularly impressed in watching the Packers throughout the season as they seldom were penalized for infraction of the rules.

On Mr. Longstreet's last point, the Detroit Red Wings have similarly avoided penalties in the Stanley Cup finals. Conversely, the Pittsburgh Penguins, who have probably by now surpassed the aging Red Wings in talent, took a string of penalties in the fifth game after the Red Wings took an early lead. As a result, the Red Wings scored three power play goals and put the game out of reach.

Allen Gillespie adds:

Hawks v Supersonics game I went to years ago - 67-66 after three with only Peyton hustling - Steve Smith scores 33 in the 4th running around like a maniac.  Also, in soccer, most goals are scored very early or very late in a half.

Relationship between time and goal scoring in soccer games-Analysis of three World Cups
 
Soccer goals and non-guassian distributions

Nigel Davies comments:

Here's another view from a mistake specialist (both my own and other peoples'):

The mistakes we make tend to crystallise around different deeply rooted thinking patterns and attitudes but then change their form when people notice them and try to something about them.

An example might be that of a trader 'taking profits too early', vowing to do something about this and then taking them 'too late'. He could be 'correcting his mistake' but failing to address the real issue of making arbitrary decisions rather than operating according to a tested plan.

Normally you have to go very deep to ferret out the cause of error and then, assuming someone is willing to go there, it's unlikely they'll actually be able to do something about it. But success can come when the number of good moves outweigh the bad, so for those with an innate 49-51 split have hope…

George Parkanyi says:

Making mistakes is not one you can generalize like that. Mistakes are how we learn. If you are not making mistakes you are probably aren't stretching yourself enough. Mistakes also come in all shapes and sizes — some are disastrous, some are benign.

Recovering from, or leveraging mistakes — now there's something.


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