Best Out of Infinity/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The losing player in a best-of-N match -- one where the winner is the first to win more than N/2 games -- keeps increasing N when they would have lost.

  • Straight: Those Two Guys are playing rock-paper-scissors for the last piece of pie, and the loser asks to make it best of three, best of five, best of seven...
  • Exaggerated: ... best of six hundred and seventeen, best of six hundred and nineteen, best of six hundred and twenty-one...
  • Downplayed: The loser gives up after arguing his way up to best-of-five.
  • Justified: The loser had been distracted during the first round, and got the rematch as a compromise.
  • Inverted:
    • The winner is trying to throw the match and failing.
    • Alternatively: The winner of the first game in a best-of-five match tries to negotiate it down to a best-of-three to improve their odds.
  • Subverted: "I'm not being a sore loser -- the rules say you have to win by two!"
  • Double Subverted: "Ha, six to four!" "Aw, come on -- first to seven?"
  • Parodied: "Damn! Best of fifty-seven?" "Don't you mean, 'best of three'?" "I'm saving time."
  • Deconstructed: The king is a sore loser, so it's understood that he must always be allowed to keep playing until he wins.
  • Reconstructed: Both players are enjoying the game so much that they make up excuses to keep playing.
  • Zig Zagged: Playing to best of three, Player A loses two matches to Player B. Player B then asks, "Are you sure you don't want to play to best of five?" A declines, but B insists on it, as a reward for A's honorable and graceful loss. Reluctantly, A agrees, and surprisingly manages three wins, making A the new winner. Inevitably, B then says, "... best of seven?"
  • Averted: The loser accepts the result of the first round.
  • Enforced: The rest of the episode wasn't long enough, so the writers needed an excuse to pad out the scene.
  • Lampshaded: "Pity, Alice. You would have won if you hadn't kept letting me change the rules on you".
  • Invoked: To make the game less random, the designer writes in the rules that the winner must win by two.
  • Exploited: The Lancer starts a series of these against the king, knowing that this will mean he is distracted long enough to allow The Captain to execute the plan.
  • Defied: "No rematches, all right?"
  • Discussed: "How far's Bob managed to extend the game now? It was best to seventy nine last time I was here".
  • Conversed: "You ever notice how people playing games in movies never accept their losses?"

Aw, c'mon! Best Out of Infinity?

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Best_Out_of_Infinity/Playing_With?oldid=852098"