If You Want to Win, Stop Conceding

One important caveat to this is that it doesn't mean you have to fight as hard as possible in every single battle, play out every single hand, or otherwise fight ferociously on an *object* level - you should be fighting ferociously on a *meta* level. It's fine, and perhaps even necessary in many games, to concede some battles in order to win the war.

(inspiration for this comment goes to Rationalist Discourse Club user "Bar Fight", who pointed out "good post, but 'concede less' is extremely bad advice for most poker players"!)

Many people do play for fun though, and don't find it fun to play against someone with your attitude. So I try not to adopt it myself, except in situations where winning is really important.

Your examples of excuse-making were really helpful.

I didn't get a good night's sleep or eat breakfast this morning, otherwise I would be winning - I just can't focus.

If I look at a sentence like that, I think this:

Why are you even thinking this thought during the match? What relevance does this have to how you're going to win right now?

I hope we haven't forgotten Stuck in the Middle With Bruce [LW · GW] and Soares' Have No Excuses, which starts with a quote from Bonds That Make Us Free.

I think one reason people end up using a minimax strategy is that it's just easier to compute than EV-maximization.

But more importantly, it just feels like there's no downsides - it's free insurance!

If you want to have a convincing excuse however, you might actively impede your chances. (It might be possible to distance yourself from the excuse so the insurance is actually free, but I think this is unlikely/hard.)

If you've already hedged so hard that you've bet a lot against yourself, you might have sufficiently changed the payoffs to make losing rational, especially if you also add a penalty to Being Mediocre. This is why post like this are needed.

Thanks for the post!

It resonates with some experience I had in playing the game of go at a competitive level.

Go is a perfect information game but it's very hard to know exactly what will be the outcome of a "fight" (you would need to look up to 30 moves ahead in some cases).

So when the other guy would kill your group of stones after a "life or death" scenario, because he had a slight advantage in the fight, it feels like the other is lucky, and most people have really bad thoughts and just give up.

Once, I created an account with the bio "I don't resign" to see what would happen if I forced myself to not concede and keep playing after a big loss. It went surprisingly well and I even went to play the highest ranked guy connected on the server. At this point, I completely lost the game and there was 100+ people watching the game, so I just resigned.

Looking back, it definitely helped me to continue fighting even after a big loss, and stop the mental chatter. However, there's a trade-off between the time gained by correctly estimating the probability of winning and resigning when too improbable, and the mental energy gained from not resigning (minus the fact that your opponent may be pretty pissed off).

Curious for your take on this question (I have my own answers but I want to not anchor you): Why do we frequently see sports teams in (e.g. basketball or football) effectively concede games by taking approaches with 0% win rate, when they have strategies that have non-zero (but very low) win rates?

A note on what this feels like in my body:

When I start feeling like giving up, then I might notice my lips shaking and other signs of nervousness and stress, like jaw clenching. If I notice this and move my body into what is closer to a fighting position (forehead forward, chin down to protect my neck, something about my lower back muscles move slightly), then I feel more relaxed, engaged, and determined, and find it easier to think about object level thoughts about how to win.

If I do the opposite, and move my head back and open my throat, then I will often shake more and feel more comfortable removing myself from the situation. Doing this at the same time as trying to relax is something like the feeling I associate with 'being ok with losing', which is sometimes appropriate. I've found experimenting with both positions helpful.

Its not clear to me this attitude is always optimal even if your only goal is to improve. The fundmaental question is 'Is the information we get from finishing this match in X minutes greater than the information we would get by spending X minutes toward playing a new match?'.

If the endgame is relatively long and not particularly interesting just concede. We aren't going to learn much from actually playing it out even if I am 2-5% to win.

Say we are practicing for a 1vs1 Terraforming Mars competition. On generation three you get out AI central and I don't have a huge lead in other areas to compensate. I think its rational to concede here. Terraforming mars takes a long time to play out. Is not really clear how exactly you will beat me, but you will draw a ton of cards and kill me somehow. I doubt you need practice crushing someone with a normal draw when you have an active AI central.

In a game with substantial luck I think it matters what caliber of opponents you are expecting to play against. If you are anticipating playing vs people substantiall worse than you it can make sense to practice winning from 'objectively lose' positions. If you are substantially stronger than the opponent you actually can win. But if your expected opponents are capable and playing the game out will take awhile just concede.

Nevermind the fact it is phycologically unplesanat to play out almost certainly lost positions. So if you are playing for enjoyment its often rational to concede. Of course during a literal tournament match play it out til the end if you are playing to win. Though make sure you are not screwing yourself because of timer rules (for example not conceding a game of mtg quick enough can make it unlikely you can finish the bo3 match).

sidenote: I have also had quite alot of success playing games. Though I don't really play competitive games anymore.

Theferrett Sid similar "gravity towards losing" that some players have sometimes. I can't find the link but it's worth adding "karma" type reasons to the list. And self-caused failures too, through "accidental" overlook of a detail.