Over-competitiveness

Multiple people have said now (and the Ahns seem to say this repeatedly) that I’m the most competitive person they know. Honestly, that shocks me. I have several responses to this. One, anyone who says this has clearly never played a game with one of the Jung brothers. I’m not even in their league, competitiveness-wise.

Two, it shocks me because there’s an implication in this statement that I’m not just very competitive, but over-competitive. I disagree with that assessment. To me, someone is over-competitive if they make it no fun for other people to play with them. In my opinion, I don’t do this. My reasoning:

• I never get mad. I’m not going to name names, but there’s a certain person who, when I play games with him/her and s/he is losing, has literally said “I hate you” to me. That’s over-competitive. Me? I always try to be upbeat. I dare say I’m the most talkative person at the poker table. That’s intentional. Guys always make the excuse in regards to poker that it’s cheaper than watching a movie and more social. If we’re going to use the social excuse (which, by the way, I think is valid), we should be intentional about talking right? Anyway, I don’t get mad with games. That would be over-competitive.
• I’ll play games I can’t win. You know, some people only play games they’re likely to win, the mentality being, if they can’t win, there’s no point playing. I’m all about the shared time, so I’m totally willing to play games I’m not that good at, like most word games. Also basketball, which I’ll still occasionally play even though I suck and it’s not fun for me.
• I always try to win. This could be viewed as over-competitive, but I argue the opposite is true – an over-competitive person, when they have little chance to win, they just get a bad attitude and try to throw the game or whine and moan or whatever. I hate this. This is just my opinion, but I think games are most fun when everyone tries to win. When people just give up or otherwise don’t try to win, it’s not as fun. Yeah, I always try to win, but in my opinion, that makes it most fun for everyone.

There is one thing they said I do that I may be guilty of, over-competitiveness-wise: gloating. Yeah, that is bad, and it makes it less fun for other people. But man, sometimes you just can’t help it. When you catch a 2-outer on the river for a pot that’s like 4 times the buy-in, I mean really, who can help themselves? Or when you come down from a huge time deficit to win Oddball in Halo, again, it cannot be helped. I feel bad about it, but it’s like a reflex. I will try to cut down on my victory dances, though. And the whooping.