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 correct usage than humanity in general.
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 my implied assertion of superiority and in its place assert his own. I have a horrible suspicion that 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.
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“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.
“Suppose, for example, that your tennis opponent kindly offers to pick you up before the game. Your procedure should be as follows: (1) Be late in answering the bell. (2) Don’t have your things ready. Appearing at last, (3) call in an anxious or “rattled” voice to wife (who need not of course be there at all) some taut last-minute questions about dinner. Walk down path and (4) realize you have forgotten shoe. Return with shoes; then just before getting into car pause (5) a certain length of time and wonder (i) whether racket is at the club or (ii) whether you have left it ‘in the bathroom at the top of the house’.”
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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 he keeps so deadpan that one never quite completely shakes off the awful suspicion that he might have meant it 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.
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“WHEN TO GIVE ADVICE
“In my own view there is only one correct time when the gamesman can give advice to his opponent and that is when the gamesman has achieved a useful though not necessarily a winning lead. Say, three up and nine to play at golf. Most of the accepted methods are effective: -
“GAMESMAN: ‘Look….may I say something?’
“OPPONENT: ‘What?’
“GAMESMAN: ‘Take it easy.’
“OPPONENT: ‘What do you mean?’
“GAMESMAN: ‘I mean – you know how to make the strokes, but you’re stretching yourself all the time. Look. Walk up to the ball. Look at the line. And make your stroke. Comfortable. Easy. It’s as simple as that.’
“In other words, the advice must be vague, to make certain it is not helpful. But, in general, the mere giving of advice is sufficient to place the gamesman in a practically invincible position.”
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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.
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“ ‘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. Through the green, the usual procedure is to frame up for the shot and then decide on another club at the last moment.”
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Inevitably, fifty 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.
It is not quite so easy to adapt for 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.
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“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’.)”
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I’m not sure the first half of this advice would work so well today. Indeed, on my rare forays onto a tennis court 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.
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Describing a game of tennis doubles in which with his fellow-gamesman Joad he played two younger, fitter opponents (dubbed Smith and Brown), Potter relates the following moment when, 0-30 down in the first game without having touched a ball, his partner returns the next service well out of court: -
“Score: forty-love. Smith is about to cross over to serve to me. When he gets to a point not less than one foot and not more than two feet beyond the centre of the court (timing is everything in this gambit), Joad called across the net in an even tone:
“ ‘Kindly say clearly, please, whether the ball was in or out.’
“You must realise that these two young men were both in the highest degree charming, well-mannered young men, perfect in their sportsmanship and behaviour. Smith stopped dead.
“SMITH: I’m so sorry – I thought it was out. (The ball had hit the back netting twelve feet behind him before touching the ground.) But what did you think, Brown?
“BROWN: I thought it was out – but do let’s have it again.
“JOAD: No, I don’t want to have it again. I only want you to say clearly, if you will, whether the ball is in or out.
“There is nothing more putting off to young university players than a slight suggestion that their etiquette or sportsmanship is in question. Smith sent a double fault to me, and another double fault to Joad.
He did not get in another ace till halfway through the third set of a match which incidentally we won."
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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. This was to be done ideally by correspondence course, given the unprepossessing aspect of the college itself (indeed, one hopes it never actually existed at all, although with Potter one can never be quite certain).
The only (so far as I am aware) transposition of Potter’s work onto the screen revolves around this 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 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 crude for the full humour to emerge. Nevertheless, watch out for the occasional rerun on lunchtime TV – or on video, which is still available.
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“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.”
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Probably, the whole concept of gamesmanship was 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) to have it 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 £7.99 from Amazon, and presumably from bookshops too. When I looked online, a used hard-cover copy was also on sale at £12.00.
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 are less easy to track down, which is just as well, since I wouldn’t want any unscrupulous opman to slip in ahead of me to review them.
© torr 2003
A review of Lifemanship, with comments on the others in the series, can be found at: http://www.ciao.co.uk/Lifemanship_Stephen_Potter__Review_5338103
Winning without actually cheating 
