“It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward.”

Rocky Balboa

I couldn’t sleep.

My eyes were wide open in the darkness and all they could see were rez costs and credit pools; unchecked remotes and advanced agendas, painfully out of reach.

My sleeplessness could have been because I had been playing competitive Netrunner no more than an hour ago and I was still hyped up, but I knew that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t sleep because I was disappointed with how the evening of Netrunner had gone. Disappointed and frustrated with my play and with my luck. With myself.

5th place out of a field of 12 is a good result. Most casual Netrunner players would be happy with that and last year I would have taken that result any day of the week. Even this year – after pledging to take the game more seriously – the placing sits alongside 3 other mid-table tournament finishes and shows how much I have improved. I’m heading in the right direction.

So why the long face? Why am I so down on tonight?

Tonight’s tournament was the culmination of a 3 week “Up My Game” course where a great player and credit to the Netrunner community, Richard Hammond, tutored a group of aspiring ‘runners of varying experience on this tremendous game. Over the 3 weeks we got to grips with the dos and don’t of the game; the archetypes and how to play them and against them; how to control your economy; how to read the table state and make better decisions. When to build and when to pressure. You can read all about weeks 1, 2 and 3 and the tournament by clicking on these links.

The sessions have been a lot of fun and very useful – changing the way I think about the game and instilling in me the fundamentals of play that often get lost amid the complexity of it all.

If you had filmed the 3 weeks and played some stirring music over the footage it would have looked like a Rocky training montage. So when it came to the mini tournament to round everything off, the stakes were high…….In my head.

And this is where it all goes wrong. This is how it unravels.

“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Yoda

I reckon I was the most experienced player on the course and I’d been on a mission since late last year to get better at this game. I had asked Richard for some help breaking down my play which had led to this Up My Game idea, which had led to hours on Jinteki.net, hours deckbuilding, hours writing, hours watching videos of games, playing games, thinking about games. At one point I was asked a question at work during a meeting and I didn’t hear it because I was thinking about whether or not Drive By would be a good fit in my Leela deck.

And what it ultimately led to was me feeling crappy after a perfectly respectable 5th place finish. I had put pressure on myself to do better and had tilted further and further off-centre.

I had made the mistake of putting winning above having fun. I’ve always wanted to be competitive in this game, but every tournament I’ve ever been in, those are the only two things I’ve looked for – to be competitive and to have fun. As soon as you put winning in the mix or the expectation of doing well, you’re on shaky ground. It is better to do your best and hope to be pleasantly surprised at the end of the day.

A harsh lesson learned.

But my crappy feeling involved something bigger. A greater fear. I felt like I had done a disservice to the Netrunner community and to our little group.

Maybe I’m being too hard on myself here. Over the 4 weeks I had made a point of discussing deck types and strategies with my less experienced opponents. I’d point out a great play he or she had just made. I’d suggested cards they might want to check out that could combat a certain strategy. I’d encouraged them all to try out the tournaments here at Patriot Games, telling them about my own experiences starting out.

In other words I had done my bit for the game and the players. Just writing these blog posts is another part of that too. But on this final night I was feeling rubbish when I should have been elated. Elated that Abby had finished 6th place when she was convinced she would lose all her games and come dead last. Elated that Kyle, having only just bought a core set, had still pulled out a win. Elated that there were so many new faces. The game was attracting new players despite the card pool size. Players who had either gone all in and bought everything or were selecting little bits here and there, savouring the game like a delicious buffet.

And I really was elated at these things, it’s just the disappointments and frustrations inside my own little bubble were souring the moment. Thankfully, they were only souring the moment for me and nobody else, otherwise I’d have felt really bad! Looking around it was fantastic to witness the last 4 four weeks pay off so much for everyone. It was all smiles around the main table and it was great to see. New players had experienced their first tournament and had grown in confidence. I hope they will be back for more. I’m sure they will be. They’ve been bitten by the bug now.

Just remember – Fun before anything else. It is only a game after all.

Games had been played, fun had been had and friends had been made and at the end of the day, what else are we here for?

“glhf”

Everyone