The game of life (The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship - Stephen Potter)

Member Name: duncantorr

Product:	The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship - Stephen Potter
Date:	05/04/09 (525 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: "If you're not one-up on the other fellow..."

Disadvantages: "...then he's one-up on you."

The word "gamesmanship" is often used, and often misused, to describe the little tricks some people play to gain advantage, but not everyone knows where the word originates.

Consider, if you please, the opening sentence above. In particular, note:

1. "And often misused" - implying that the writer has a better understanding of the correct usage than most people
2. "Little tricks some people play" - implying, dismissively, that the writer himself is above such small-minded deviousness.
3. "Not everyone knows" - implying that the writer possesses superior knowledge, which he is condescendingly about to impart.

All done by implication, without anything as brash as a boast to be seen.

To be pedantic, it is an example of "one-upsmanship" rather than gamesmanship, but I believe that Stephen Potter, who coined both terms, would have approved of this opening sentence. Not that he would have admitted to approval. Rather, he would have looked for a "counter-ploy" whereby to rebut the implied assertion of superiority and in its place assert his own. In all likelihood he would have found several in his armoury, so I shall not mention here what they might be.

The world that Potter assumed we all inhabit - characterised as it is by ruthless competition both sporting and social, thinly veiled by hypocritical good fellowship - would be a dreadful one indeed if his advice on how to thrive in it were not so funny.

The first of Potter's books "The Theory and Practice of GAMESMANSHIP, or, The Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating" - referred to here as Gamesmanship for short - was published in 1947. Tongue firmly embedded in cheek (or so one supposes, though his style is so deadpan that one never quite completely shakes off the awful suspicion that he might have meant his message to be taken seriously) Potter propounds in it a set of principles whereby the sportsman of indifferent skill could nonetheless triumph. These principles devolve into a variety of "gambits" and "ploys" to disconcert and demoralise his opponents.

*

"The assiduous student of gamesmanship has little time for the minutiae of the game - little opportunity for learning how to play the shots, for instance."

In Potter's world, there are too many other, more important, things on which to concentrate, beginning well before the game itself is played: -

"THE FIRST MUSCLE STIFFENED (in his opponent by the Gamesman) IS THE FIRST POINT GAINED. Let us consider some of the processes of Defeat by Tension. The object is to create a state of anxiety, to build up an atmosphere of muddled fluster."

Potter then goes on to give guidance as to how to induce the requisite state of anxiety, both prior to the game (by creating delay and confusion, all in the most cheerful of spirits), and throughout its progress (by, for example, offering an opponent patronising advice on how to play). Typical is this piece of advice on how to pace oneself in a sporting contest: -

" 'PLAY AGAINST YOUR OPPONENT'S TEMPO.' This is one of the oldest of gambits and is now almost entirely used in the form 'My Slow to your Fast'. E.g. at billiards, or snooker, or golf especially, against a player who makes a great deal of 'wanting to get on with the game', the technique is (1) to agree (perhaps adding 'as long as we don't hurry on the shot'); (2) to hold things up by fifteen to twenty disguised pauses....in driving, the technique is to tee the ball, frame up for the shot, and then at the last moment stop, pretend to push the tee-peg a little further in or pull it a little further out, and then start all over again."

Inevitably, sixty years on, much of the language and some of the conventions within which Potter's gamesmen operated, seem dated now. The language, quaint as it seems, the reader can adapt for, since there are usually current colloquialisms that fit. Less easy to adjust to is the social frame of reference. In particular, Potter's emphasis on the importance of an outward show of good manners smacks of an era when certain standards of behaviour were more universally accepted than they are today, and people were thus more concerned about being seen to fall short of them.

"Remember the slogan: 'THE GOOD GAMESMAN IS THE GOOD SPORTSMAN'. The use of sportsmanship is, of course, most important. With the athletic but stupid player, ex-rowing or ex-boxing, who is going to take it out of you, by God, if he suspects you of being unsporting, extreme sportingness is the thing, and the instant waiving of any rule which works in your favour is the procedure. On the other hand, playing against the introvert crusty cynical type, remember than sportingness will be wasted on him. There must be no unsportingness on your part, of course: but a keen knowledge of little-known rules and penalties will cause him to feel he is being beaten at his own game. (See under 'Croquet, rulesmanship in'.)"

I'm not sure the first half of this advice would work so well today. Indeed, on my rare forays onto a tennis court, croquet lawn or snooker table, I find that even genteel opponents take merciless advantage of my waiving any rule that works in my favour - or at least, my instinct tells me they would do if I were foolish enough to offer it, which I am not.

Did I say "even" genteel opponents? I think I meant "especially".

But Potter moved in a different milieu and a different era. Many of his precepts are illustrated by anecdotes about how his fellow-gamesmen (one hesitates to call them "friends"), real or imaginary, have applied them in practice.

"I have been asked to give an exact explanation of the phrase 'Simpson's Statue', a simple gambit often used in snooker, croquet or golf. R Simpson had the idea of standing in the 'wrong place' while his opponent was playing his shot - beyond the line of the putt in golf or the pot in billiards (or, in bowls, simply standing in the way). Having elicited a remonstrance, Simpson then proceeded, before every subsequent shot, not only in that game but in all subsequent matches against the same opponent, to remember that he was in the wrong position more or less at the last moment, leap into the correct position with exaggerated agility, and stand rigidly still with his head bowed."

*

Gamesmanship was followed in 1950 by "Some notes on LIFEMANSHIP", which purported to show how similar manoeuvres could be deployed to secure success in life beyond the narrow arena of sport. Next, in 1952, came "ONE-UPMANSHIP" with more examples of the same approach in social situations. Finally, in 1958, "SUPERMANSHIP - or How to Continue to Stay Top without Actually Falling Apart" brought the series to a conclusion.
By the time Supermanship appeared Potter had already taken three crops from the most fertile ground at his disposal, and the joke was beginning to wear a bit thin. But the first three books are no less funny or telling for that. Gamesmanship in particular, perhaps because it only attempts to cover the narrow and less serious subject of sport, is irresistible.

*

As Potter developed and broadened his theme through his books, he introduced the parallel concept of the College of Lifemanship, based in Station Road, Yeovil, where students could learn to be more successful gamesmen/lifemen. One-Upsmanship opens with a gloriously overblown description of this supposed college: its extent, its pedigree, its high aspirations. These are followed by a drawing of same - a dilapidated Gothic building squeezed between gasworks and railway sidings in an unprepossessing precinct of the town of Yeovil. (To any proud citizens of Yeovil - kindly do not downrate this review on account of this remark; I'm describing Potter's picture, not my own impression of your doubtless glistening municipality.)

The college did not in reality exist, and nor was Potter its Principal. His early professional career was indeed spent in education, but in a relatively mundane and undistinguished capacity as a lecturer in English at London University. In 1939 he joined the BBC, where he stayed until 1949, by which time Gamesmanship had become a best-seller. In addition to the "manship" series, he published a wide variety of other work, both humorous and serious, up to his death in 1969.

*

The only (so far as I am aware) transposition of Potter's work onto the screen revolves around the notional College, and appeared in 1960 as "School for Scoundrels", starring Terry-Thomas and Ian Carmichael. Film buffs of this era will have no difficulty spotting which of the stars plays the accomplished gamesman and which the decent but inept ingénu who learns to triumph in the end. The other major actor in the film is Alistair Sim, also typecast, in his case in the role of Potter himself as Principal of the College, who teaches Carmichael the necessary tricks.

The film is still worth watching for their performances, but is a slight disappointment overall. Potter's little conceits work best in writing, freeze-dried and ready to be activated by the pouring on of the reader's imagination. For their enactment to be grasped on screen, they are necessarily simplified, and appear too crass for the full humour to emerge. Nevertheless, watch out for the occasional rerun on TV - or on DVD, which is still available.

*

"And often misused." Since Potter coined it, the word gamesmanship has entered the language, but in a rather debased form. Practices now referred to as gamesmanship - diving in the hope of having a penalty awarded against the opposing team, for example, or brow-beating referees - would be too crude and blatant to qualify under Potter's definition. They are just cheating really, and the whole subtle point of gamesmanship was that it enabled the gamesman to win without actually cheating. The nearest modern equivalent is perhaps the 'mind games' reputedly played between football managers, but even they don't recapture the original flavour of the idea.

Probably, the whole concept of gamesmanship was both more apposite and funnier when it first appeared than it is today. After all, in those days it was regarded as more shocking to defy such conventions as sportsmanship, and therefore all the more shocking (and hence funnier) when it was pointed out that plenty of cut and thrust could be going on beneath the seemingly serene social surface. But that shouldn't deter anyone from reading Potter's work today, because its funniness relies on an underlying truth that is timeless.

Gamesmanship is still in print and readily available, in paperback at £7.19 from Amazon, and presumably from bookshops too. Since it was a big best-seller when it first came out, and those who bought it in their youth are dying off and having their collections disposed of, it's also fairly easy to track down in second-hand bookshops, charity shops, etc. Its sequels can also frequently be found.

"All go-getters, careerists, snobs, cads and cut-throats will find this book invaluable," wrote John Betjeman of one of Potter's works. Since I fall into none of these categories - or, at least, none that I would admit to - invaluable isn't quite the word I would have used. Hilarious, perhaps.


© First published in its original form under the name torr on Ciao UK

Summary: Winning without actually cheating