I wonder if there are any games (mainly strategy games and the like) that allow or actually encourage a "Play to Lose" strategy in order to win. Basically, using Bad Karma to buy Good Karma (Or taking a rough life to get all the crap that naturally comes with good fortune out of the way first, so upon having said fortune, you're hardened to it, instead of paranoid because of it; or something. :shrug: You know, take in all the bad first, so all that remains for the remainder of your life is nothing but good.). Forge yourself in the fires of Hell to be made into a blade worthy of Heaven's might; so to speak.
Basically, a game where the underdog knows they're at, and always, at a disadvantage, and utilize their consistently bad rankings and the like to screw over a system employed by nothing but winners and people who "Play to Win".
Concept is based on a tactic I actually used plenty of times that actually gave me enough of an upper-hand in plenty of cases (from card games to fantasy football (Last season of FF, I actually won 1st place, by "Playing to Lose". No kidding.)), throwing a spanner into the works of so many winning gameplans that because I screwed things up so badly by intentionally losing, I started to win on a more regular basis. I actually got banned from playing some games because this strategy worked so damn well. It's dissimilar to trolling, in the sense that it intentionally breaks a system, but it still does it within the confines of the ruleset, and is actually a strategy used to balance the odds a bit overall.
For example:
I'm not allowed to play
"No Thanks" against my siblings anymore because I intentionally sabotaged my own hand a few times, and played for the big points (points are bad), and because I played so bad, and lucked out on a draw, I negated my bad luck, while also breaking everyone else's potential chains (so instead of 3-8 points being claimed, they instead got more like 16-24 points; while I only collected 26 or so. I did badly, but they did relatively worse. Playing normally the following round actually worked in my favor since they now doubted my intentions from then on, while I was their primary target, forgetting about the other more casual no-tactic players beating them.). Out of 6 players, I placed 3rd in the round I played that tactic, and the 1st place player, who was consistently placing that was in the bottom-3, as well as any other "Play to Win"ner, and anyone else with no real strategy just accepted their new high rank for the time being. The Winners were so pissed off at my "Play to Lose" strategy so much, I was banned from playing it ever again.
We need more games where "Playing to Lose" is encouraged. Losers can win too, Nice Guys can finish first once in awhile, (INSERT OTHER "SOCIAL TABOO" HERE); fuck Status Quo, this is actually pretty fun.