Golconda: inner peace

Level: medium
Out of game section

Concentration

Before we talk about a very interesting discussion I read about concentration in V:tes, I wanted to let you know how happy I was that Paris was chosen to welcome you in 2010 for the European Championship. I probably won't be playing there and it could be my last tournament... I don't know yet. But anyway what is sure is that we are going to have a lot of fun.

Now, concerning concentration.

Concentration is one of the two most important qualities of a V:tes player, the other one being how well you play. It is useless to be a great player technically if you are not concentrated enough to extract as much as you can from the information of the table.

Concentration could be variable from an individual to another, as some have no problems following a game, chatting and watching TV in the same time (I am one of those) but everybody, is focusing on the game, should be able to benefit of it.

I Be part of the game

You're playing a multiplayer game here, so concentration is very important because there are many more information to get than in a single player game. You have four sources of information, to make it clear. Try to extract from them everywhere. Look at how they look scared during their predator's master phase, look at how hesitant their hands are when they declare a bleed, then compare to what you already know and determine what could be deducted.

You can get information from many ways:
-> cards played
-> players physical tells
-> players chatting
and potential tricker things like players out of game indications sometimes.

How can you get those information? Be part of the game.
Being part of the game is dedicating yourself to think deep about the game. You are not the spectator who looks your prey playing a deflection, you are the actor determining under which conditions your prey would be playing a deflection.

When being part of the game, your mind must be making deductions everywhere, must anticipate what is going to happen, look if you were right, then assume the correct things about it.

An interesting stuff to note is that bluff is scarcely important for a v:tes player and 90% of the time, when you see a physical tell, it is probably the truth. A player not even bother thinking on 1 stealth action probably does not have intercept in his hand or wakes to play, except if he is a very good player able to decide very fast what he is going to block.

On the opposite, don't assume everybody is playing right because you are good. If a player lets a bleed for 3 pass when at 4 pool and 2 vampire to act after, don't assume he has no bounce or 2 bounces exactly in his hand because he could be playing badly and have 1 bounce or make a strange move...

II Go for it

I see many players making correct assumptions but not using them accordingly. You often hear "I was sure you did not have any wake, I should have tried to kill you back then". An important step of progressing in V:tes is gaining confidence. If you are confident, you will not have to lose actions trying to lure your opponent. You will not need those "bleed for 1" to test your opponent's wakes. Instead, you will start with big bleeds based on your assumption. Sometimes it won't work because your opponent has drawed something good in the meantime but on the long level, it is fairly positive to be able to do so.

If you have correct readings, you also win possibilities to control the table by determining how the table is going to move on easily. Determine who is the dead meat, who is struggling with his cards and offer him solutions accordingly.

Finally, I would say that an experienced player does not use his instinct instead on critical situations. Experienced player will just play accordinly to their cards and information they get. Only in a life or death situation, will they refer to instinct additionnaly. You don't need instinct if you're playing your right cards at the right moment, thanks to the reading on your opponent.


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I will be speaking of more out-of-game situations soon but I have much work waiting for me at the moment, all best, orian.