Gamesmanship

The term was popularized by Stephen Potter's humorous[citation needed] 1947 book, The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship (or the Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating).

Potter cites the origin of gamesmanship to be a tennis match[3] in which he and the philosopher C. E. M. Joad competed against two younger and fitter men who were outplaying them fairly comfortably.

Because they were young and polite, the slight suggestion by Joad that their etiquette and sportsmanship were in question was extremely off-putting, and distracted them for the rest of the contest.

The rules of the International Defensive Pistol Association for its practical shooting matches specifically state that any illegal action taken with the intent of gaining a competitive advantage is penalized as a "Failure to Do Right", adding 20 seconds to the competitor's time.

Each form is frequently used as a means of describing dubious methods of winning and/or psychological tricks used to intimidate or confuse one's opponent.

[17][18] Potter's double-edged ironies did not spare the gamesman himself (he slyly named one prominent protagonist 'Bzo, U., holder (1947) Yugo-Slav Gamesmanship Championship',[19] for example).

Potter acknowledged repeatedly that "the way of the gamesman is hard, his training strict, his progress slow, his disappointments many", and recognised that as a result "the assiduous student of gamesmanship has little time for the minutiae of the game itself – little opportunity for learning how to play the shots, for instance".