Playing to Win: Becoming the Champion Kindle Edition

A lot of the other reviewers sound like they've had experience on the Street Fighter (SF) tournament circuit, or perhaps tournaments for other games. I'd like to offer a different viewpoint: that of someone who never really had the opportunity to play tournament-level SF, but always wanted to.

This book didn't talk solely about SF; it also discussed Magic: The Gathering, Chess, and several other games. The book itself is focused on the idea of "playing to win" and what it means for your mindset and how you approach the game (any game). But it was clear from the reading that SF was Sirlin's first love. I'd like to give a little personal background to explain why it resonated for me so much.

I'm 35 now, but I've been playing SF in all its various iterations since I was 15 if not earlier. I think since my first Shoryuken, I've been in love with this game. I had friends to play it with, but I was WAY more into it than all of them and most of them grew tired of it long before I did. I had a couple local arcades, but for whatever reason, there were never many people at the SF machines. Certainly, as far as I know, there were no local tournaments. In fact, when I was in my teens I don't think I even knew SF tournaments could happen.

When I did happen to see someone at the local machines, I'd always be chomping at the bit to play them. But since all my experience with the game was on my SNES or Playstation, they'd usually beat me. I was too unfamiliar with the stick.

When online gaming started to become a thing, I remember basically hoping and praying that it would one day become reliable enough to play SF online. I'd been wanting to play other people (instead of the computer) for as long as I could remember - and not just any other people, but people who were INTO it, who would know stuff I'd never figured out, who'd knock me flat on my butt and force me to improve. When SF4 finally came out, I got my chance. Even though I had two kids and a full time job by then, I drilled a hole in my wall to get my XBox wired, and finally (FINALLY) started getting whupped by some real players. I know it's not the same as the old arcade scene or the tournament scene, but for me it's been a long-awaited dream come true.

So why does this mean I loved Sirlin's book? Well, two reasons.

First - My game has improved about a thousand-fold since I started playing online. I'm still no master, but I'm far, far better than I was. Occasionally I'll run into someone who actually fears me a bit, which is fantastic, and I've started having these insights. These little whispers in my brain. Like, "He's playing the game where he has to block the cross-up. I'm going to play a game where I just jump without a cross-up, and then throw." Because we're playing different games, and my opponent doesn't know the rules of my game, I win.

Sirlin captures a similar concept here, and when I read it I was ecstatic. I'm not a pro SF gamer and never will be, but I DO want to be better at it. I always have. When I read that the good players develop a similar mindset to the one I was starting to feel out, it thrilled me. It made me feel like I was on the right track. There were some great nuggets in this book: a fantastic definition of "scrub," a great summary of the correct attitude toward losing (again, one I've been adopting prior to reading), an analysis of the "fear aura," and all kinds of other things my wife always looks at me like I'm nuts for talking about when I try to explain them to her. Just reading that I wasn't the only person on the planet who'd thought about all this stuff was incredibly vindicating.

Second - Sirlin relates some stories from his time in tournaments that allowed me to live vicariously through him. I did passing well in some M:TG tournaments back in the 90s, and used to do policy debate in high school, so I'm familiar with the tension and excitement of the tournament format. It was pretty easy to slide that layer of tension over the stories he was telling and imagine what it must've been like. Odds are I'm never getting to an SF tournament now, no matter how much I'd love to give it a try, because I just don't have the time any more. But the few stories that were in here allowed me a precious glimpse into a life I would've loved to have taken a shot at, given the opportunity.

Bottom line: the book was a blast. I plowed through it in a couple days. It let me imagine a world, not too much different from this one, where I was allowed to let my SF neurosis run completely rampant and become the champion I always wanted to be.

Thanks, Mr. Sirlin. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Playing to Win is a fun little book that I picked up, I believe, after seeing a recommendation for it from Sean Plott, or Day9, who is a big name in games like Starcraft, Starcraft 2, etc. for his knowledge, gameplay and analysis. After seeing some stories of Sean's time in competition with Starcraft and how he performed, seeing a book called Playing to Win made it instantly interesting to me, so I decided to pick it up and give it a read.

The book itself is, I think, a little generous in even calling it a book. It's more like a dissertation or essay on competitive gaming and the different avenues people can take in whatever game they choose to reach the top of competition. I say it's more like an essay in how it is laid out in print. There are large spaces between paragraphs and the headings divide sections of paragraphs with their respective points. It's not a bad thing, as it makes reading sections easier because you know what's in them, but at the same time, I wished there were more the construction of the book, a little bit more to it rather than just spacing.

Getting into the actual writing, Sirlin has an interesting way of writing his point to you that will, I think, turn you on to his writing or make you close it and stop. I would definitely suggest trying to read a little demo and see because it could really sound silly to people who are expecting, again, more of a book. I say this because the subject matter that Sirlin is basing his thinking and point of view off of are video games, and competitive ones at that. He makes reference to games like Starcraft, Street Fighter, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, etc., games that are all 1v1, super competitive games. Sirlin himself has played Street Fighter at a high level, so he uses his own experiences as well. Because the thinking is based off of video games, you'll see references to 'Noobs', 'Scrubs', etc. which is terminology commonly used in video game circles. Now, after seeing that, are you turned off by the book using this kind of language? If yes, then you're gonna want to check out the book before buying, but if you're okay, then you may even enjoy the references with these words.

The actual methodology Sirlin advocates in book focuses on several different areas which range from finding and meeting like minded people in the game you want to play, understanding the rules of the game and not being hampered by made up rules you place on yourself, and going through different ways of thinking and relating players in video games to Chess players. That is a very broad overview, but Sirlin does a good job of going into each point and fleshing it out, so there is no question as to what he meant by what he is writing. He also makes reference to Sun Tsu's Art of War in the book, which is kinda hit and miss for me after reading. I understand the comparison Sirlin is going for, but Art of War is a book that needs a lot of discussion or interpretation to be meaningful and having such a loaded book included is a little much to understand points completely.

To summarize (hopefully adequately) the points of playing to win, practice, practice, practice, find others to practice and talk strategy with, don't be intimidated by 'cheap' moves or call others cheap when they are playing by the rules of the game, and find a play style that works for you like turtling, being aggressive, etc. Again, very broad, but hopefully that gives you an idea of what to look for. There is no magic sentence or word of thinking you'll find in the book that will instantly make you champion in a game. It does bring to light the need to find others like you and to work with them, not to be a lone wolf, and it is a fun, short book to read, so you can pick it up after you have read it and go back to it.

Be careful of the kind of language Sirlin is using in his writing, but if you're fine with that and want some interesting points to think about in your own game/skill, then check it out. I believe you can even find it for free (online version) if you search for it.

I thought this book was a very good read, for a book on competitive gaming to say the least. There is a lot that could be learned from this book, if given the time and enough thought. I can say that by reading this book it not only changed my view on certain things but also helped me recognize things I was unaware of and made me see bigger possibilities in the things I was aware of. So with that said I would recommend this book to anybody interested in the fighting game genre or any competitive game, weither novice or veteran.

I don't agree with everything the book states, but I do appreciate the different viewpoint that the book gives about fighting games.