the long game.

i played scrabble with my roommate last night. it was a close game the whole night. more than three hours. really interesting words. scrabble words. but we do give each other allowances i admit. in the end she won, her rules not mine, but whatever.
but it seemed the whole time, we were playing two different games, two strategies at least.
tonight, after a day and evening filled with mirrors held up to a face i dont often see, i played canasta with my roommate (lets not add in the complicating variable of why she is always my opponent; proximity, intimacy, defacto, etc.) and a similar trend has started to emerge.
i taught her to play tonight, she said that it was a lot like rummy 500. i dont know the game so i cant tell you. but she said it was different enough to confuse her. i should have had the advantage.
but she took the first hand.
i then explained to her my strategy (most likely to get her to my way of thinking so that we would at least be playing the same game, at risk for giving her my game so that i would create an opponent of my equal or better).
you hold the books in your hand in hope of getting the run. Statistically speaking it is easier to get the canasta with a run than a book. so you should hold out for the run. but there is always the point in the middle where you decide? statistically speaking, how long do you hold onto the run, before it becomes more likely to get the book?
i personally think this is a style. this is a newly thought out theory though, so you let me know what you think.
but i think some people try to get what they can in the first moment. they cover the field. Tackle the opponent. and kill before a single drop of blood has been spilled.
and this is effective, for the short game.
but the strategy that i tried to disseminate to my roommate tonight was that of the long game.
the long game is when you hold out, not just for the run, and actually not even just for the canasta, but the long game is about steadying yourself, taking a few hands, collecting a lot of options and then in the last moments making every connection, laying down, going out.
its the patient way.
but you have to have faith that the other person, your opponent, is at least playing a slower game, if not the long game.
and then you add in the variable of how likely is it that your opponent would play a long hand to a short hand, what is there stance and motivation?
and the plot thickens.
and if you were to extrapolate this theory for the larger picture of life, all the way from professionally speaking to personally speaking, you could further ask: Who's in for the longer run, him or me?