Ace28's Secret Hideout
Common Sense
February 24, 2005

Briefing:

Hello once again fellow trainers. Before we begin, I must start us off with a little story. This past week I have been buying cards on bay like a madman in order to try to get what I need for States coming up this March fifth in Athens, Ohio. I am sending out my last payments tonight and hoping that I will get everything in time ;x. So as I was cruising ebay yesterday, searching for cards and I began to think. I thought, what else would be good to write about? I told myself to use my common sense. Then it came to me...Common Sense! Common Sense, let alone in everyday life is very often overlooked. I myself, admit that there have been many occasions where I forgot (and still do forget ;x) to use common sense. I believe that it is only human to make mistakes. So in a sense, I guess you could say that today we will learn to become a little less human ;x.

Intro:

Okay, think of common sense as a Tool. You can choose to use it or you can choose not to. Usually, you want to stick with common sense, since it will help you out. What is common sense exactly? Here is the actual definition:

Common Sense: Sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge; native good judgment.

As you can see, common sense is not based on a super strategy, or on extremely deep insight. You could say it is like a window through which you look to see the simplicity of it all. It is hard to find the right words to say, to describe it but this is the best example I can think of right now...It is like being an astronomer and looking at the night sky and being able to pick out certain patterns without thinking to hard or being a fisherman and noticing a certain type of fish without looking up what it is in a book. These example are kind of crude but as I said earlier, they are the best I can come up with at the moment. Now, that we have a general idea of what common sense is lets put it into the perspectives of a pokemon game... 

You are playing in a heated Championship battle at States (as per usual :)). The prize count is two-one in favor of you. You have three cards left to draw and your opponent two. You are using Dark Dragonite/Trode and your opponent is playing the same. You have a Pidgeotto up front with zero counters on it but no energy(Pidgeot is in prizes =)). Your opponent has a Pidgeot active and a Dragonair with one rainbow attached to it benched. You want to wait for him/her to deck so you play on the defensive. There is not much you can do at the moment knowing that you are pretty much out of energies and have no more trainers that are useful left since you can’t draw. You each have a hand size of three. You have a Celios, a Voltorb, and a Rainbow Energy. You want to play Celios just to see what you have left and see a Dark Energy, a Strength Charm, and a TM Rock. Then an idea pops into your head, you decide you want to end this game right away by attacking the Pidgeot for fifty with your Voltorb next turn and then following up with a TM Rock to win it(He used Rare Candy on his Pidgey). The euphoric visions of winning flood into your mind and you decide to go for it. You forget that all you need to do is stall for another few turns with your Pidgeotto in the active position . You place the Voltorb on your bench and attach the rainbow and pass. You sit their smugly knowing that this will be an amazing combo...or so you think. Your opponent sensing this plays Reversal, flips heads and brings your voltorb up. To your horror he attaches another rainbow to his dragonair and then a strength charm after switching it with his active. He ko’s your voltorb and ties in prizes. You end up going into sudden death due to time running out etc...

The lesson in this is not to get to greedy. An important game is better off with you not pulling out a fantastic move in hopes of having it work, when you could just sit back and let your opponent deck or something and let yourself get the win.

Mid:

Now that we know that we should not get greedy, what else is good to understand? Well, quite a few things to be honest. Not only should you not get greedy, you should not get satisfied. By this, I mean never become content with the game you are playing in. Once you become content, you become relaxed. You make more mistakes when you are not thinking clearly. Therefore you are likely to not use common sense when you are satisfied. If you are losing, start making smart choices. When you are winning, continue to hammer down your opponent up until you have drawn all prizes. By this I mean, continue to play your hardest. Just because you’re up a few prizes is no reason to quit playing altogether. It is only courteous to show your opponent your best game.