So, I haven't been on the forums - new or "old" - for the last month or so, mostly because I've been busy with school and whatnot. Also, to be fair, I've been playing a lot of EDH Magic recently, which has kind of reinvigorated my passion for that game (only to a limited extent, though - I'm not going to be playing standard anytime soon). And UFS is in kind of a holding pattern until the next set comes out, so it's been hard to try and remain creative for me recently.

Anyway, I thought I'd christen the new board with a new article, and yesterday something came up that makes for the perfect topic. I made a huge, easily correctable mistake in a game that I could have and should have won, and my mistake cost me the win. Now, though I'm competitive I don't usually get angry when I lose, but I do get really angry at myself when I make a stupid mistake and one of my faults is that I can dwell on it. This is a natural response to messing up, however I've noticed that the best players in the world are able to either avoid those errors completely or shake them off and move on no matter how big it is.

Steve Horvath once told me that championships are defined by mistakes, and I think he's right. It may not be true in every single case, but often it does seem that the top players are seperated by that all-important critical play, and that's what turns the match one way or another. I have always felt that one of the keys to improving your game is to try and reduce the number of mistakes in your play consistently, and it will add up to an overall benefit. How does one go about doing that, exactly? Well...

• Practice makes perfect . The more you play, especially if it's routinely against high level players, the more you automatically start to identify and correct your problems. Some people cannot handle criticism, but I like to have someone point out plays that I might have missed; it helps to think about that in the longterm. Sometimes, explaining your own reasoning can help you work through mistakes, since you will be able to better understand why you made the plays that you did and whether or not it was tactically the best decision. That sounds complicated, but I promise that with enough practice it will become an automatic part of your thinking process during games.
• Increase your board awareness . What does that mean? Well, you should always be aware of the number of cards in your opponent's hand, the types of control foundations on the board that could impact your turn, and most importantly what is in your opponent's discard pile and your own. This is really the most elementary way of gaining free information. I watched a game the other day with a novice who was absolutely convinced that his experienced opponent was holding a key Rejection, and played timid because of it. Only problem being, all 4 Rejections were already in the discard pile! If he had just done a basic check, he could have won. Always, always, ALWAYS know what's going on and it'll pay off for you.
• Do your own play-by-play . If you are really serious about competing at a high level, this is one of the best tips I can give you. It's simple, just play a game and write down every play that either player makes. You don't have to mark down foundations, etc but just keep short notes on everything else. Then, after the game whether you win or lose, review the plays and see what you could have done differently. This will greatly improve your focus and help you recognize mistakes much more frequently. I have used this little device in the past for several games, including Chess and MTG, and it really does work. Try it out!
• Finally, don't give away a game, ever . In an article by ceejaybee about the South Arena Showdown, he told of two matches that he won simply because his opponent assumed that he had a victory condition in his hand, and conceded. This is called a "mise" and its a brilliant trick that pros often use to pull out victories from nowhere. So the lesson is - don't let anyone mise you. Never assume anything, never expect to lose (that's a self-defeating prophecy waiting to happen), and always make your opponent play it out even if it looks dire. Winning games in a tournament on your own can be hard enough, but giving them away for free is just terrible.

Those are just some basic tips that will help you play tighter in the future. Hope that helps, and anyone who has their own tips to share feel free to add your comments as well.

-Vik

As important as the other 3 points are, the 4th bullet item is probably one of the first and more important things you should learn as a card-game player.

Hate to double post, but if there's an edit button I haven't found it.

Listen to this guy. =D

The repeated practice on its own is the best remedy for ironing out common blunders of a more physical type, for sure. But as early as you can, you want to integrate your 'board awareness' practice into that, and start training your brain into it, rather than trying to perfect your technique before making a separate effort to improve strategy and awareness. This is actually something I often struggle with. If practice makes perfect, repeatedly practicing the wrong way will only make you perfect at doing it wrong.

Points 1, 2, and 4 are something you should try to weave into each other as much as you can. Generally this will physically change the pace and motions by which you play, which is usually a sign you're on the right track. The third item is something I'm not so used to, but could prove helpful if you do it occasionally to "check" how you're coming along with the learning process.

One problem people may face is a lack of playing opportunities over the course of a typical week, and especially total play time/ability to play several games in one opportunity. This makes it very hard to ever DO any of this. And that, I don't know of anything to say that will help with.

I'll make a post here about something I posted on the old forums, that went well overall. Reworded to make a bit more sense.

Worry more about what you're doing before you worry about what your opponent is doing.

Of course I'm not saying ignore everything your opponent does-that would be grounds for you losing every game. (unless your deck is a 100% consistent Turn 1 deck, which in that case, gimme. now.) What I mean is pay attention to what you're doing, make sure you're reacting properly to everything going on in the game, stop blaming luck for wins/losses, and everything else along those lines.

VikramS said:

Current meta, this is a one-way ticket to a match loss, however. Games take way too **** long for you to afford playing out entire locks. Yes, you need to see a win condition, but in those cases, the timer is a worse enemy than your opponent. Your opponent has no problem in playing the entire thing - He's winning and you're losing. The longer you take in admitting defeat (granted, you HAVE to be defeated, if there's a remote possible way for you to get out of there, do the risk and do it. If it doesn't work you would have died anyway, and if it works you just might turn the tables), the less time you have to make up the difference in the second game. Sometimes, you have to spend money to make money.

I am just happy to see Vik write some new articles I hope it continues the board needs insightful things like this now .

I can second the whole keep track of the game and mistakes being made costing games

I played a game 2day actually where i was playing promo pyron who can when his attacks deal damage he can look at the top x cards of his opponents deck to RFG one of those cards he looks at...where x is the damage dealt.

well i had a bitter rivals out and played it my opponent had no attacks in hand and i made my attack unblockable by changing the zone however when i went to look at the top 4 cards i was faced with a decision....

I saw 2 foundations one split attack foundation and an absurd strength i immidiately RFGd the absurd because of how scary it is...but if i would have remembered that my opponent didnt have any attacks in hand i would have gotten rid of the split attack because he would have had an absurd with no attacks whatsoever and i would have survived the next turn and possibly won the game next turn

Very nice read Vik.

May I also add that something that helped me at nats was thinking of different scenarios that may or may not happen on your kill turn and figure out what you can do to effectly choose the correct decision. Basically, don't ruin your kill turn because you "forgot" your opponent had 1 card in hand and it just happened to be Rejection. Play smart. Take time to think about your kill and what your opponent could possibly do and what you could do to counter it before you actually try it.

I think the one thing I teach my players the most is to brush off any mistakes they make and adapt by whatever they mess up on. Even if it's something little like forgetting to keep track of how many cards a player has drawn in a turn or something, I make sure they can change to the situation. Up here we play longer matches, so tournaments usually last long and we're able to jam in 2-out-of-3 all the time.

I even have a piece of paper up on the tackboard that pretty much sums up exactly what I tell my players, "Never give up, never surrender, and never say die."

I generally go with "The one who wins the match is the one who wins the requisite amount of games. Nothing more, nothing less."

TummyEden said:

I think thats a great point tucker during the time CSS was big and if you ever miscalculated your lost for sure no if's and's or but's.

Vik I don't even know you and you have inspired me t osay this: "teach me Obi-Wan.." teach me the ways of the force".

All jokes aside you hit the nail on the head with points two and three you have to know what your opponent has in their discard,hand, and, in their staging area at all times. Bluffing is a classic strategy used over and over again you just have to see through it.

I usually don't let mistakes bother me but it sucks when you make them at big events. I haven't played in enough big UFS events but I can still remember some mistakes I made in the top cuts of large Raw Deal events/world qualifiers that were like 2-5 years ago. Some of the biggest ones weren't huge mistakes but little things that would have eventually won me games, sometime it's not even the big mistake that gets you it's something little you probably totally overlooked at the time but when you go back after it happened you realized how much it could have changed things. Those "mistakes" bother me till this day.

Reminds me of the Earth patch event. The key to "winning" against my :.:Zangief:.: was to just draw til time. Why? I ran 0 attacks, meaning I couldn't really win without their help. However, my opponent become so frustrated at the prospect of not being able to kill me in any way shape or form that he just conceded both matches to me XD.

You need a point 4.1

"Give up the match if you can't afford to waste the time playing out the match."

I've won/drawn a few games where I was in such a poor position game 1 my chances of winning were almost nill, so I just dropped the game and moved onto the next one, where I could win or lose to my own discression. You aren't ALWAYS going to be able to win a game, and if your deck is quick enough to pull it's wins out, but you just got lucked out game 1, move onto the game 2 and 3 ASAP.

deathcritis1 said:

Thats a great point I wish my brother was into CCG's hes a pro poker player and has the bluffing mentality to a science.

It's easy to brush off mistakes as long as you remember that EVERYONE makes them now and then and even in BIG situations they make them. I've seen Every body whose face is going to be on a card this year make a major miskate at least once or twice in big time moments. IT happens, you beat yourself up, and you move on.

I blew Game 2 in worlds 2008 Top 4 to James Hata not because I missed the play, but just was coming up with a backup plan for my main plan, and accidently ended up merging the two plans into my head, and made a play meant for plan B, in plan A and it cost me the game.

It happens, you shake it off and move on.

To help decrease my mistakes one thing I've tried to do is ask myself each turn a few simple questions.

1. What do I have?

2. What does my opponent have?

3. What do I need?

4. How do I get there?

I've found just forcing myself to answer these questions before and durring every play has greatly increased my board awareness and slowly has minimized my mistakes.

failed2k said:

I remember watching that JR it happens every now and then to everyone though ....

The beauty of the human mind is that it isn't perfect.

Jotting down notes as to what you did wrong in X situation is always good-I see a lot of Poker pros make recordings of what they did wrong after a hand is completed.