Can Strategy Have Same Impact in Solo Games as it Does in Team Sports?

In the worlds of sports and gaming, there are two types of players – those who like to play as part of a team and those who prefer to go it alone. Team players vs lone wolves. Each type of play brings its own benefits and pleasures.

Being part of a team for a game like football or baseball has a strong social and communal aspect, promoting cooperation and a sense of shared purpose. Taking part in a solo game or sport such as poker or golf promotes self-reliance and gives the player greater control over their performance.

Either approach can incorporate elements of strategy. In a team sport, it seems relatively self-evident that without a strong sense of direction you won’t get very far. In an individual game, it’s less apparent to the casual observer that strategy has an important role, but nonetheless, a solid strategy can be deeply involved and prove a deciding factor in a game.

Let’s go with poker for a moment. To the non-player, the role that chance has to play in the game might seem to negate much opportunity for strategy, leaving the player in a reactive position from which they must respond to the cards as they’re dealt. Indeed, this is probably true for a beginner. But one of the key factors that separates a seasoned veteran from a keen beginner is the extent to which they’re able to deploy a strategy over the course of one or multiple games.

Broadly put, strategy in poker is a series of choices that describe a given player’s actions. A solid strategy can elevate a player’s game. Poker is not, after all, an inherently complex game – at least in terms of the ruleset. The basics can be picked up in a matter of minutes. In fact, with no physical element to be mastered as in something like football, basketball or cricket, you could make a strong argument that being good at poker is entirely about having a good poker strategy.

Poker strategies are guided by elements of the game such as its game-theoretic properties like the role of chance and the imperfect information available. A good approach has to cover factors such as mixed strategies, techniques for deceiving opponents and tactics for tackling probability based on the information available. Players must consider things such as their own attitude to risk, the possibility of playing a long game, aggression plays, the calibre and playing style of your opponents, your position within a hand and, most challengingly, the mathematics of the hand you’re playing.

So, in poker, despite the fact that you’re playing alone against your opponents and don’t need overarching principles as a means of coordinating multiple team members, employing a strong strategy is the best way to hedge against the unknowns of the game and manage your risk.

Another class of solo activity in which strategy plays a very different role is endurance sports such as Iron Man triathlon or ultramarathons (any foot race run over distances exceeding that of a marathon). While your ability to run, cycle or swim long distances over many hours or even days might seem to simply be a function of an athlete’s strength and stamina, the intricacies of endurance sports can in fact lead to a great deal of complexity for which strategy can provide an essential tool kit.

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On one level, there are strategies for maximising competitiveness. An Iron Man triathlete, for example, might have to judge his relative strengths in the different disciplines of a her race (swimming, cycling and running) and decide where to push for an advantage and where to hang back in order to conserve energy.

She might also consider the strengths and weaknesses of her opponents – do they tend to go out strong but fade later? Are they vulnerable to being pushed harder than they can realistically manage?

There are also strategies for managing the athlete’s own performance. Over the course of an ultramarathon, which may be 100 miles or more, it’s almost inevitable that things will go wrong. They might develop blisters, find that they have become unable to digest food or simply find that they are stuck in what’s affectionately referred to as ‘the pain cave’.

Endurance sports

A pre-established strategy for dealing with these things, such as switching shoes, walking for a stretch or using music as a distraction technique, can be the difference between completing an event or being forced to drop out.

So, again, despite the fact that there’s no need to guide multiple players towards a common goal, strategy plays a crucial role in solo endurance sports.

It’s undeniable, however, that when it comes to team games the need for a strong strategy is all-important. Let’s look at rugby union. There are multiple components to the sport, with different parts of the team playing very different parts of the game (to the point where you could almost describe them as games in their own right). To massively simplify it, the job of the forwards is to win possession of the ball while the job of the backs is to turn that into possession into points by either scoring tries or kicking goals.

Depending on the strengths of their team (and the strengths of their opposing team) a coach might decide to play a very forward-focused game, using the strength and power of the forwards to control play by tying up the ball and driving it up the field using brute force.

If, however, they have a set of back adept at creating space and out manoeuvring opponents, combined with an opposing team that’s weak on defence, they might look to run a fast, fluid game that keeps the ball in play and uses the backs’ speed to run up a big score.

Having that strategy in place is crucial, however, to ensure that the team works in an organised, coordinated manner that doesn’t descend into chaos.

So, while strategy might have a different role in solo games than it does in team activities, its role cannot be downplayed in either.