Margin

Imagine you're playing this game.

It's an electronic, portable Skeeball variant, about the size of an open laptop if you slice it right down the middle. The goal is to bounce marbles on the little blue trampoline into the rings to score as many points as possible before time runs out.

How would you do it?

I first tried this game at TFH's place. Being right handed, I picked up marbles with my left hand, passed them to my right, where I shot them at the trampoline, which I thought was pretty efficient. I think I ended up scoring something like 60 points, and though I knew I had a lot of room to improve, I asked TFH what his high score was, for reference.

"About 200," he said.
"No seriously?"
"Seriously."
"No way. Please demonstrate"

TFH shrugs. He begins the game by picking up six marbles, three in each hand. He then launches all the marbles from one hand at the trampoline, right hand, left, then right again. It is a ridiculous sight - he is shooting 2-3 marbles a second, and while some of his shots are way off, impressively most hit the targets. Meanwhile, TFH's two cats are madly running around on the floor, batting at the marbles as they fall. TFH doesn't crack 200, but is able to more than triple my score.

This Skeebal episode is an example of one of the things I love about games - when someone comes up with an inventive strategy or technique to eke out the littlest advantages possible in a game, to squeeze value out of the proverbial lemon until it is dry. I've heard this alternatively called gaining margin, minmaxing, or perfect play, but I believe all gamers like me (that is, competitive gamers) recognize it.

Take my coworker, Semi, who plays a lot of Warcraft 3. In Warcraft 3, you need to hit a lot of keys on the left side of the keyboard - asdf, zxcv, etc. - while your right hand handles the mouse. The one exception is when you want to use one of the six items your hero has. Each of the items can be accessed by hitting the number pad on the right side of the keyboard, which is a reach for the left hand. To minimize this, Semi bought a detachable number pad which he could put close to his left. Buying a separate number pad for one game may already strike some as going a step too far. Semi didn't stop there. In Warcraft, your hero can only hold up to 6 items, so the only keys on the number pad that are relevant for the game are 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8. Finding he accidentally hit the "useless" keys (like "3") too often, Semi decided to flick out all the other keys.

Ruining a $25 piece of electronic equipment for an almost imperceptible improvement in game ability? This is what I mean by margin.

But this phenomenon really isn't limited just to gaming. For example, my friend "Mike" has plotted out his life goals on an Excel spreadsheet in a tour de force of analysis that will make any gamer proud. Let me define what this means. He's broken down his goals into general categories: job, money, romance, etc. Then, he's added dozens of subgoals under each category. He's written down how much wealth he'd like to obtain, exactly where he'd like to visit, even how often he'd like to have casual sex. He can literally enter in inputs numbers in a spreadsheet and it'll spit out a number telling him how close he is to experiencing everything he wants in his lifetime (how would you like to know that you are 21.23% of the way one day, and then 21.26% the next?).

I think if you asked someone what they think about this, they will tell you that Semi or Mike display a level of obsessiveness bordering on being dangerous. After all, gaining margin is about pushing a game, even the game of life, to the very limits of analysis, which almost by definition means you're taking something a little too far. Perhaps this is why so many successful people - in chess, poker, art, acting, etc. - appear crazy.

So why do it? I'm sure the reasons are different for everyone, but maybe I can explain by counterexample. Recently, I've taken to classifying things as the 106.5 of their category. For example, Horatio Alger is the 106.5 of writers, PF Chang's is the 106.5 of Chinese restaurants, and Kinkade is the 106.5 of artists. For those who don't know, 106.5 is a popular radio station in the Bay Area. I can't say I hate it, and in the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit I do listen to it from time to time.

The thing about 106.5, though, is I don't know anyone who loves it. I'm sure even if you don't live here, you know a radio station like it. One which over and over again delivers safe, played out hits that rarely offend. 106.5, in other words, might never fail, but only because it never tried to be great.

And when thinking about it this way, I realize that's the one thing I want most to avoid - to have the 106.5 of lives.