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It is one thing to be beaten by someone; it is another thing to have it done roundly, you sweating and fuming, while the other fellow, as far as you can tell, is spending most of his time, except for an occasional instant spent sizing up the board and moving, in considering the ambient trivia of the camp or the shapes and motions of passing clouds. - (Players of Gor, Chapter 12, Sentence #94)

His play was normally exact, even painfully exact, and an opponent's smallest mistake or least weakness in position would be likely to be exploited devastatingly and mercilessly, but, beyond this, an exhibition of a certain brilliant methodicality not unknown amongst high-level players, it was often characterized by an astounding inventiveness, an astounding creativity, in combinations. He was the sort of fellow who did not merely play the game but contributed to it. Further, sometimes to my irritation, he often, too often, in my opinion, seemed to produce these things with an apparent lack of effort, with an almost insolent ease, with an almost arrogant nonchalance. It is one thing to be beaten by someone; it is another thing to have it done roundly, you sweating and fuming, while the other fellow, as far as you can tell, is spending most of his time, except for an occasional instant spent sizing up the board and moving, in considering the ambient trivia of the camp or the shapes and motions of passing clouds. If this fellow had a weakness in Kaissa it was perhaps a tendency to occasionally indulge in curious or even reckless experimentation. Too, I was convinced he might occasionally let his attention wander just a bit too much, perhaps confident of his ability to overcome inadvertencies, or perhaps because of a tendency to underestimate opponents. Too, he had an interest in the psychology of the game. - (Players of Gor)