0-0

I am a big fan of breaking a game into smaller pieces.  In college I fell in love with the idea of playing games to 3.  (I continue to use games to 3 as a hindsight tool for reviewing a game that NUT has played, but I never use it in the moment).  When I brought tried bringing the idea to Chicago Club, Zubair told me he likes playing games to 1.  It took a while for this idea to settle in, but today I am all about bringing a 0-0 mentality.

In the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, Kahenman outlines the following pattern: when we are behind or losing we become more risk seeking and when we are ahead or winning we become more risk averse.

This psychological effect is a factor in “comebacks” and “collapses”.  Let’s take it from both vantages:

Winning team:  The winning team builds a lead by playing loose and not being afraid to take shots.  After the lead is built there is a tendency to become risk averse.  They begin taking fewer shots and play tighter.

Losing team:  The losing team is in a hole.  There is a tendency to become risk seeking or to “win it all back right away” by taking some risky shots.  This creates two options, the risks either don’t work and they dig a bigger hole or they do work and they make the comeback.

In both of these scenarios the teams make a material departure from their base state.  They allow the score to affect their state of mind and it pushes them away from who they are as a team.  I hate it when teams get away from who they are.  It’s incredibly irritating to watch a winning to lose a lead because they stop throwing breaks, or watch a losing team just get blown out because they keep throwing terrible hucks, I will admit that watching a team make a comeback by hitting a bunch of hucks in a row is very exciting albeit rate.

A 0-0 mentality combats this and helps a team play in their base state.