Three-upmanship: The theory & practice of gamesmanship; Some notes on…

I first read Gamesmanship at the tender age of six or so. I knew it was supposed to be funny, because the way I had found it was by browsing the humor shelves of the public library. (At six I was already exploring out well beyond the confines of the library's juvenile sections.) It probably had a salutary effect on me, in terms of making the gamesmanship in which it purports to offer instruction seem utterly repellent, albeit curiously arresting.

Potter often describes the complex and antagonistic relationship among the three factors of sportsmanship (constructive sociability in the game context), skill (mastery of game-specific processes and contents), and gamesmanship (exploitation of socio-psychological factors to defeat opponents). In fact, gamesmanship turns out to be not so much about the "art of winning" (note the sparse and apologetic chapter on "Winmanship"), but the art of precipitating losses in rivals.

Some of the best bits of the book are the elaborate (and often pointless) diagrams, and the end-matter: especially "A Queer Match" in the "Gamesmanania" section (105-107). Appendix II, a "Note on Etiquette" betrays the essentially esoteric character of gamesmanship, which may account for the fascination it once exercised over me.

Another hilarious volume of interpersonal politics as only an Englishman can do it. It helps if the reader is English or has a strong background in English culture, as many of the gambits are predicated on subtle class distinctions. ( )