Most common and bizarre forms of Gamesmanship ?

Jul 26, 2012 11:02:39 GMT oge said:

However on a critical shot xxxxx showed his true colours and set about putting off his opponent, with the cough of all coughs. Convenient or Gamesmanship, who knows but it did the job to put xxxxx off his stride at a vital time. From here there was no looking back as xxxxx ran out to win.

Is this sort of thing acceptable or just unavoidable? Should xxxxx have blocked it out?

We have all seen different forms of putting your opponent off some quite subtle some not so.

What are the most common and bizarre forms of Gamesmanship you have seen?

This is bad etiquette and akin to what happens in Golf.

In a local league a huge joke was made about strategic coughing, but this was more to signal that his teammate had enough and should "old 'em". Ever since he has been known as the Major.

The most widespread form of gamesmanship I know is the opponent standing in your line of view, i.e. alongside the table. I always ask them to move. Bizarrely, this is the opposite to Golf, where you want the opponent in view and not standing behind you.  

Margo was put off her normal game in one of her matches last season by one of the opponents leaving his arm on the side of the table and noisily munching pizza in full view as she broke off. She hit the ball about an inch. I have rarely been so angry.

The most despicable act of gamesmanship IMHO is when the pre-match handshake is overly firm. I have encountered this twice, the bonecrusher each time leaving me hardly able to hold a cue. :(  

[milko]

Jul 26, 2012 11:02:39 GMT oge said:

We have all seen different forms of putting your opponent off some quite subtle some not so.

What are the most common and bizarre forms of Gamesmanship you have seen?

Just seen this, though I'd better not answer but just to say that I've experienced quite a lot of that over the years!!

You'll always get it no matter what sport you play, you just have to shut it out but that's easier said than done.  

[gandalf the untidy]

Jul 26, 2012 15:50:57 GMT tommo III said:

This is bad etiquette and akin to what happens in Golf.

In a local league a huge joke was made about strategic coughing, but this was more to signal that his teammate had enough and should "old 'em". Ever since he has been known as the Major.

The most widespread form of gamesmanship I know is the opponent standing in your line of view, i.e. alongside the table. I always ask them to move. Bizarrely, this is the opposite to Golf, where you want the opponent in view and not standing behind you.  

Margo was put off her normal game in one of her matches last season by one of the opponents leaving his arm on the side of the table and noisily munching pizza in full view as she broke off. She hit the ball about an inch. I have rarely been so angry.

The most despicable act of gamesmanship IMHO is when the pre-match handshake is overly firm. I have encountered this twice, the bonecrusher each time leaving me hardly able to hold a cue. :(  

Hi tommo,

have been on the receiving end many times, when i'm playing well everything is inconsequential and has no effect, but the opposite is true when i cant quite get a handle on the top. C'est la vie

regs cs

Wow, Gandalf,
That's the primest example of someone missing the point that I've ever seen. ;D

[The Bridesmaid]

To be honest guys i don`t mind people trying to put me off, it just shows they are a lesser player than you and need to try anything to win a match.....
when we play mace and little legs all i hear when i`m playing is jokes off his phone being read out loudly but i join in with it.
i don`t lose games due to other peoples tricks its down to my game on the night... if my head is with it or not
i prefer noise to be totally honest after all it is a pub game

champs

[gandalf the untidy]

Jul 26, 2012 18:58:41 GMT tommo III said:

Wow, Gandalf,
That's the primest example of someone missing the point that I've ever seen. ;D

well i've got to be good at something Tommo ;D

[gandalf the untidy]

Jul 26, 2012 19:41:46 GMT gandalf the untidy said:

Jul 26, 2012 18:58:41 GMT tommo III said:

Wow, Gandalf,
That's the primest example of someone missing the point that I've ever seen. ;D

well i've got to be good at something Tommo ;D

might take a SNIPE at the PINES later :-* :-* :-*

Well it fooled Margo !

Champs and Gandalf make good points that it is a skill in itself to remain unflappable in the face of offputting tactics. Oh how I wish I possessed that supreme level of concentration, the ability to shut everything out.

And in such circumstances, as Champs says, mild retaliation would seem to be in order. As gamesmanship goes on in all sports, I will give you some examples from another one: Chess.

In tournaments I have played against an alkie reeking of whisky, who kept taking swigs from a hip flask, and in a club game against a British GM who was slurping a really pungent chinese takeaway and breathing the fumes all over me. I nearly lost the firms championship once when my opponent kept picking his nose and I was just about to take his bishop when I noticed a big bogey on it and decided against !

Back to tournaments and once at the Harrow Congress I played a chap who would not sit still while playing, preferring to get up and wander to the back of the room when it was my go, returning to his seat only once I had pressed his clock....
Eventually I cottoned on to the fact that I could control him like on a piece of string, as I pretended I was about to move, he started to home in, and then I changed my mind to see him go away again!

I have also been up against a seductress, who kept undoing another button on her blouse, and kicked off her shoes and kept brushing my legs with her nylons, but that's a different story.......... ;D  

[gandalf the untidy]

Jul 26, 2012 20:03:36 GMT tommo III said:

Champs and Gandalf make good points that it is a skill in itself to remain unflappable in the face of offputting tactics. Oh how I wish I possessed that supreme level of concentration, the ability to shut everything out.



I have also been up against a seductress, who kept undoing another button on her blouse, and kicked off her shoes and kept brushing my legs with her nylons, but that's a different story.......... ;D  

Whats the telephone no tommo!!!!

[Q]

I can honestly say that the biggest improvement to my game came when I finally managed to "get the blinkers out", I can now play a game and totally ignore my surroundings, I'm still cr@p but I'm consistant with it ;D

[dipper]

If they start to get through to you they have won, so just bite the bullet, consentrate and get on with the game. The best way to get back at them is by beating them and by a very large margin,and get a drink off them (preferably a pint if they ask, not a half, that will upset them).

Being able to concentrate for the entire 20 minutes is definitely an acquired art, but things can still happen which break the concentration, accidentally or by design. Dogs and/or children running about and getting under your feet tries the patience.

Having to explain the entire rules of the game to an interested and over-enthusiastic local whilst trying to play an important Semi-Final can also be an unwanted diversion, as Ros will tell you. Nigel having a newly-found fan crouch down beside the table while he was approaching a 20k break at Inter-League was a stern test too.

If you can shut that sort of thing out, good for you.  My nerves were shattered once at the George and Dragon when I was fighting back with one of my trademark 50-hole sequences when a lot of metal tokens were knocked accidentally into an ashtray. I nearly jumped out of my skin and missed the next shot. It can happen.

Deliberate acts of gamesmanship are something entirely different. Doing a player out of score, reaching across for the chalk in front of the player, standing in full view, the bone-crushing handshake (common assault, surely ?) sledging, scorer mumbling the scores inaudibly, really deliberately slow play/timewasting - all old soldiers' tricks, and as Roger hints there is only one really satisfactory way of dealing with them. 8-)  

[oge]

One form that i have seen is when a player constantly chalks his cue. I think i scored about 5 or 6k once and i think my opponent re chalked his cue 30/40 times. It was always when i had a tricky shot or required to keep 1 up.

Helps if you have balls nerves of steel in Surrey: ;D ;D

Mar 24, 2007 22:42:01 GMT tommo III said:

Then there was the surprisingly salacious behaviour of two of the ladies, xxxx and xxxx. Jimmy Greenstead claimed that xxxx groped his ar$e while they were playing - she couldn't resist it apparently - and I witnessed first-hand xxxx tugging at the slacks of both Laurie AND xxxx. There was some doubt apparently as to whether xxxx had "gone commando", but she was sporting a thong - allegedly.

And poor Laurie, trying to win the vital last frame for the County, had both of them on to him. He was nudged, caressed, groped and buffeted on every shot, had the cue slid between the legs treatment, and was sledged between and during shots. :o Somehow he managed to keep a sensible game going, and even the miscues turned out to be winning shots. He was even goaded into playing the 400 shot at the end when he didn't need it - and he got it - so well done to him in triumphing against all adversity. 8-)

            [some names removed to protect the not-so-innocent]

[dipper]

There was a player that used to play in the Worthing league that used to be so slow but a very accurate player, he used to cue up about ten times before he struck the ball, we put him in our inter-league team and with the break 5,000 would play the table out, but most people accepted it because that was the only way he could play and he did it very well, as with some fifty potters that did not split I feel it is all part of the game. I am sure most of the longer serving players can name him, he played at the Downsview.  

Aug 1, 2012 17:44:05 GMT dipper said:

I am sure most of the longer serving players can name him, he played at the Downsview.  

Hmm, as I like a challenge I've researched the Worthing A teams from 1970 and 1980 and can't see anyone there who fits the bill:

1970-ish: R.Osborne, I.Lelliott, T.Denyer, J.Lewington, C.Preston, B.Barnett, P.McCallum
1980-ish: D.France, D.Flavin, R.Bungard, B.Richards, C.Preston, T.Denyer, I.Lelliott.

NB No 'Dipper' mentioned - he was Littlehampton in those days.

The only slow player I can think of who might have played a table out would be Noaksey - but then he was Littlehampton as well. :-/

[dipper]

Perhaps a bit later on Clive, his initials were TR

Must be prior to 1992 though Roger, as I can't find him on the I'League records which start then.
I remember a Terry Ridge, but don't remember him as being particularly slow, rather as a very accomplished player.

[dipper]

I will put you out of your misery, his name was Tim Rathbone, and he played for the Downsview and the inter-league `A` team.

Aug 5, 2012 16:20:10 GMT dipper said:

I will put you out of your misery, his name was Tim Rathbone, and he played for the Downsview and the inter-league `A` team.

I remember him ! Before he played in your league he played in Billingshurst League for the White Lion (Thakeham) in the early 1970's.

His dad was in the team as well and used to smoke a briar pipe while playing - and he was TWICE as slow as Tim ! ;D ;D