Potter's Ploys

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF GAMESMANSHIP, or The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating (128 pp.) --Stephen Potter--Holf ($2.50).

Wrapped up as a parody of a sportsman's manual, this is a very funny little book, but like some other funny books, it is a work of curious ferocity. Social discomfiture as a sport has never been so blandly exposed.

The author, Stephen Potter, is an Englishman who insists that he learned "gamesmanship" as late as 1931, and from another gamesman, instead of at his nanny's knee. Students of the British character may challenge this assertion. He was playing a match of tennis doubles against two athletic young men, Smith and Brown. Potter and his partner, the hardened metaphysician C.E.M. Joad, could scarcely touch the first two cannon balls served to them by Smith, and only by accident did the third one hit Joad's racket, rebounding wildly across the net and landing twelve feet out of court.

Timing Is Everything. "Now here comes the moment," writes Potter in his best Punch style, "on which not only this match, but so much of the future of British sport was to turn. Score: forty-love. Smith at 51 [see cut] is about to cross over to serve to me (at P). When Smith gets to a point (K) not less than one foot and not more than two feet beyond the center of the court (I know now what I only felt then--that timing is everything in this gambit), Joad (standing at J2) called across the net, in an even tone:

" 'Kindly say clearly, please, whether the ball was in or out.'

"Crude to our ears, perhaps. A Stone-Age implement. But beautifully accurate gamesmanship for 1931 ... Smith (at Point K) stopped dead.

"Smith: 'I'm so sorry ... I thought it was out . . . But what did you think, Brown?'

"Brown: 'I thought it was out--but do let's have it again.'

"Joad: 'No, I don't want to have it again. I only want you to say clearly, if you will, whether the ball is in or out.'

"There is nothing more putting off to young university players than a slight suggestion that their etiquette or sportsmanship is in question . . . Smith sent a double fault to me, and another double fault to Joad. He did not get in another ace service till halfway through the third set of a match which incidentally we won . . . For me it was the birth of gamesmanship."

The Secondary Hamper. On the jacket, the U.S. publisher compares the techniques that Potter and certain accomplices have worked out to "psychological warfare." Since it is directed against "friends," gamesmanship attacks the very woof of society. Some of Author Potter's maxims :

P: "// you can't volley, wear velvet socks . . . The good-looking young athlete, perfectly dressed, is made to feel a fool if his bad shot is returned by a man who looks as if he has never been on a tennis court before."

P: In golf, "Do not attempt to irritate partner by spending too long looking for your lost ball. This is unsporting. But the [good] gamesman makes a great and irritatingly prolonged parade of spending extra time looking for his opponent's ball."

Thus the gamesman callously makes use of Sportsmanship itself, only one gambit among others that include Luncheonship, Guestmanship, Advicemanship, Clothesmanship and Brinkmanship. In addition, Author Potter has invented the following conversational "ploy" (gamesman for tactic) which he gives as an example of the "secondary hamper":

"Gamesman: 'I was fortunate enough to meet your daughter on Sunday.' " Layman: 'Yes, indeed -- I know. She told me.' " Gamesman: 'What wonderful hair -- a real Titian.'" Layman: 'Oh -- no -- that can't have been my daughter -- that was Ethel Baird.' " Gamesman: 'Really. But I thought I was talking to your -- ' " Layman: 'You were, but that was earlier on.'" Gamesman: 'Was it -- but what was the colour of your daughter's hair?" Layman: 'Well--a sort of brown--' Gamesman: "Of course. Of course. Of course.' '

By contrast with this, the man of good will may feel, such straightforward, old-fashioned competitive concepts as the Teutonic "frightfulness" (Schrecklichkeit), or the discredited American flying wedge seem as mild as mother's milk.

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