Applying Strategy in Presenting Oneself to Others
"When an individual enters the presence of others, they commonly seek to acquire information about him or to bring into play information about him already possessed." -Goffman This is constantly present when competitive players enter the playing field of a game. It is especially true, when a game requires strategic skill to out do the other player(s) such through the means of confusing, misleading the player, antagonizing, insulting, etc., essentially putting on an act. The players who are truly competitive will calculate and observe their opponents because it is within his or her interests to control the conduct of other player(s), especially their responsive play toward him or her.
The competitive player will often put on an act of sorts, a bluff as to who he or she is and how they wish the other player(s) to think of them and how they perceive them. In Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life he states, "He may wish them to think highly of him, or to think that he thinks highly of them or to perceive how in fact he feels toward them, or to obtain no clear-cut impression; he may wish to ensure sufficient harmony so that the interaction can be sustained, or to defraud, get rid of, confuse, mislead, antagonize or insult them. Regardless of the particular objective which the individual has in mind and of his motive for having this objective, it will be in his interests to control the conduct of the others, especially their responsive treatment of him." Goffman relates this to everyday life in how people put forth what they want others to see, but I believe this is true for any competitive player in games.
In order to be successful in a game such as poker, the players need to be able to bluff when they don't necessarily have the best of hands. This way they can string along other players possibly who have worst hands or even better but believe they can get those players to fold at the last possible second thus enabling the bluffing player to win all the money being gambled. This relates back to putting on an act to control the conduct of the other player(s). In order to make a successful bluff, Ashley Adams states "there are six general matters the player needs to consider whether or not to bluff: your opponents, your image, the betting history of the hand, your position, the strength of your hand, and the size of the bet." By accounting for all of these and the player's ability to act and deceive, the bluffing player can potentially win the most rounds aka the most money.
In any strategic game, the players want to deceive their competitors into thinking they are doing something else in order to mislead them and play into their hands. This goes back to Goffman's quote at the beginning, where individuals commonly seek information about others when they enter another's presence. In order to play strategic games, the players do not want to give away how they plan to play or deceive their competitors. They only give the necessarily information along with what they want the competitor to think. But in order to master a strategic game, the player needs to be able to calculate all the possibilities relatively quickly and read their opponent in figuring out what they are going to play or figure out how to get their opponent to play a certain way making it easier to predict the outcome and determining your best point of action. The player also does not want the other player(s) to easily be able to predict their moves, so it is in their best interest to not always adopt the same strategy. Nick Bentley writes an interesting article titled: How to Jedi Master Any Strategy Game which goes into more detail on how to go about winning a strategic game. Which I highly suggest reading as a starter if you as a player are interested at becoming a great strategy game player. But once you as a player understand the basic mechanics of strategy games, you can then apply them to almost any strategy game and succeed more often than not.
To become a great strategy game player; you as a player need to be always somewhat on guard when entering a playing field in order to deceive your opponents into thinking you are not playing as you seem. You need to be able to gather as much information on your opponent(s) as well as deceive them into thinking what you want them to think. You as a player, need to be able to quickly and effectively come up with every possible outcome and be able to counter it. And if per say you make a blunder be able to quickly recover. Thus apply what Goffman's talks about in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life to your strategic game play and you as a player shall go far.
Goffman - The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
http://www.pokerology.com/lessons/bluffing-in-poker/
http://www.boardgamestrategies.com/blog/how-to-win-strategy-game/