Perfect Practice Makes Perfect Practitioners

Ok, so I was cleaning up my basement – a response to the incessant requests from my beloved wife – when my son held up a random book and asked me: “Story?”

It was a first year psychology textbook, and it was destined for a reinforced garbage bag, but in a reminiscing frame of mind I gave it a quick flip-through. What caught my eye was a reference to a study undertaken in the early ‘50s. The study proved empirically the correlation between practice and performance.

Through a series of structured scientific scenarios and several herds of young children (ages 5 through 8 ), it was observed that the more you practice a given task the better you perform. While this is all very interesting, especially the use of children in scientific experiments in the 50s, and somewhat common sense, the study further determined that not only does the amount of practice affect performance the quality of practice has an equal if not greater impact. Specifically, the study showed that by practicing a task in a manner that established the mind-set of the task when performed “for real” the children achieve the highest performance.

How does this relate to playing A Game of Thrones (AGoT)?

Players preparing for a AGoT tournament should be play testing (practicing) their decks using a tournament “mind set” if they want to perform to the best of their abilities. For example, focusing on every game outside of a tournament as if it is taking place in a tournament will establish tournament habits in your overall play. Or from a somewhat existential point of view: to WIN a tournament, you must BE the tournament.

This means that when preparing for a tournament you should maintain a serious – competitive – attitude. It is ok to have a good time, but make sure you take your time and think your actions through just like you would in a tournament setting.

If you prepare for a tournament in a sloppy, unfocused way, these sloppy, unfocused habits will migrate into your tournament play. Perhaps not immediately – you will be able to focus on the first few games in a tournament – but as the day wears on you will be more inclined to slip into bad habits.

Have you ever noticed that in the later rounds of a sports game or near the end of a big exam in school you acted different than you would have at the beginning? This is principally a reflection of fatigue, in that the more tired you are, the more you begin to operate on “autopilot”; practice is about “programming” this autopilot with good habits: winning habits.

In summary: both the amount and quality of your day-to-day play will impact your success at tournaments, so stay focussed, play a lot, and you will find yourself getting further and further in the tournament standings.

Perfect Practitioners Pouch of Practicing Paraphernalia

Online Play (e.g. OCTGN): If you don’t know my view on online play check out my very first blog entry athttp://www.cardgamed...ot-online-play/

Online play will let you play against a wide variety of decks and players with greater frequency that in-person play. You can test against a stock Martell Maesters deck a million times, but what will happen when you sit down across from an opponent running a less control version with more rush in it?

Learning to adapt to different build flavours is a skill you can’t just learn from playing against the same deck over and over. You need to be exposed to other builds and other strategies. In addition I find that those players who play online are looking to improve their game and so take each game a bit more seriously then your normal casual player.

Local Tournaments: While there is something to be said about sitting in front of your computer at home, in your tighty-whities, eating Cheetos, while sipping on a Doctor Pepper, in the midst of an engrossing game of AGoT… online play doesn’t really capture the battle that is face-to-face play. Play testing in person can be very useful for developing “peripheral” habits. For example: you need to make sure you can play at your best while having a conversation with your opponent or dealing with other distractions like friends and other players watching you. One of the best ways to develop these skills is through small local tournaments.

Local tournaments are also good places to prepare for larger regional tournaments as the players will generally play more seriously once they have paid an entry fee and see a prize dangled in front of them.