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Is gamesmanship always a bad thing?

Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Thursday, 4 March 2010, at 5:58 p.m.

In Response To: Is gamesmanship always a bad thing? (Rich Munitz)

Open mindedness is a good thing.

Comparing backgammon with other games has its pitfalls. At poker it seems to be allowed to berate and otherwise verbally abuse your opponents. Guys like Mike Mouthusow and Phil Hellmouth do so consistently, and seem to get away with such actions consistently. At baseball, fielders who know they've not caught the ball on the fly but pretend that they did to fool the umpires are not only permitted to do so but even encouraged to do so. (Similarly, in football the receiver/defender can pretend to have caught the ball before it hit the ground.) At golf (and un-refereed tennis), players are expected to do the opposite -- make HONEST calls even when those are to their own detriment.

One question worth asking is: does gamesmanship lead to better or worse comraderie and relationships between players? We have seen some evidence recently which seems to indicate the answer could be 'worse'.

I've read here repeatedly that some feel backgammon is a "gentlemen's game" (or more gender neutral: a game for ladies and gentlemen). I don't think poker is going to have that description associated with it anytime soon.

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