by Dukasaur on Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:16 pm
I've interviewed a lot of tournament winners, and this is one of the questions I occasionally ask.
There are people out there who carry 100+ games on an ongoing basis, but they rarely rise above lieutenant. People with decent rank (Major or higher) rarely play more than 40 or 50 games at a time.
My personal experience tends to support that. My goal is to keep my game count below 40, but I never achieve it. Usually as soon as it dips below 50, someone will update some tournaments that I'm in and it will rise again. Most often it's up around 60 or more. And sure enough, when it's down between 40 and 50, I'm winning a lot, and when it's up around 60 or 70 I'm losing a lot. There's definitely a breaking point where your attention span can't handle any more, and you start to make stupid careless mistakes.
Of course the breaking point will be different for different people, and it also depends a lot on what kind of games you play. (1v1 games will almost always involve a turn every day or more, while an 8-player game may give you three or four days respite before your next turn comes around.)
“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
― Voltaire