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Episode 9 – July 21, 2025.
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Sigh. Where to start:
“Fast” play doesn’t have to be risky/rash. It can be conservative and well thought out. Nothing forces you to do anything different when playing quickly. You’re just acting more quickly.
There is some merit to playing faster. Playing faster takes less time leaving you more time for other games. Playing more means you learn quicker, you get more exposure to risk/reward, you end up making better decisions and make those decisions more quickly. In engineering, fast play is a reinforcing feedback loop.
There is merit to playing broadly. The more players you meet, the more ideas you get exposed to. Playing more experienced players exposes you to more interesting rules usages. Playing new players challenges your assumptions and forces you to re-look at things through their eyes. The more options you can see, the quicker everything becomes a “been there, done that” situation. The more you play, the easier it becomes to see all of your options. The easier things are to see, the quicker you can formulate a plan and get to it.
Ultimately, slow play is more a clash of play styles than it is “self-destruction”. James Taylor, Sean Deller, Bill Cirillo are among some of the best players I know. If you asked them about their pace of play, they would all tell you “yeah, I’m on the slower side”. I always tell Jim Taylor he’s never met a game he could would on turn 3 he wouldn’t rather win on turn 10. All of this because I get bored waiting around for them to do something. I lose interest. I lose focus.
I find playing with Steve Pleva, Mike McGrath, Gary Fortenberry more interesting. These guys (me too) will take some time to look at the board, formulate a plan, and then get to it. The closer the game is to the culmination point (the point at which victory for one side or the other is determined, hint: it isn’t always the end of the game), the more they will stop to have a think. But once they get under way, they are rapid fire in their movements and execution. This keeps me engaged in the game because I am thinking and reacting rather than passively sitting there wait. Steve famously says “Study long, study wrong”. Then the avalanche begins.
If Scott and Neal are happy with their pace of play, it isn’t slow play. If one side or the other isn’t, chances are it could just be differences in where you are on the ASL education curve.
Ultimately, ASL is a game we play to avoid the reality of life for a while. If it becomes a chore, or a source of irritation, then stop playing it. Find something else you enjoy (like making a new storage system 🙂 )
I’m not sure we’re “happy” with our pace of play, we always talk about speeding things up. But we accept it because fun/satisfaction when playing with a buddy is more important than pace. If I was in a situation that required faster play (impatient opponent, tournament, etc) I would certainly pick up the pace…probably at my detriment. 😅
At the end of the stream, someone said “roll it and figure it out of I roll a 3.” I understand why that seems like a way to increase the pace of play but that attitude IS self destructive. Like all things, there are good reasons to do this, but they aren’t frequent IMO.
WRT pace of play, think about all the times you look at the QRDC. If you learn the IIFT and the TH modifiers, you would cover at least 80% of all chart consults. I think it’s actually much higher than that. On top of that, knowing those TH/IFT throws, you can then begin to plan with an eye towards the odds. Your “moral management” idea is otherwise stated as “risk management”. And you cannot manage risk without knowing what the risk is.
Knowing the risk goes a long ways towards mitigating “AP” too. Just my .02.