Basically any game that has, as you said, the winner being the last man standing. It might be that the most active and most capable players are the ones who lose out earlier and who is left are the more passive and elusive players that don't take center stage earlier and every other player thinks they can easily win them, hence they aren't taken out and in the end they prevail. So basically games were the competitors can vote out players who they can see as being better as them (the Survivor stuff?).

Not a game, but perhaps a good example is the follower of a ruthless dictator. Usually these people are ordinary bland yes-men who nobody thought would be the follower as those who were the capable, popular and ambitious usually get killed as the dictator sees them as potential threats to their absolute power and take them out.

(Those who survived the purges in the back)

You can play a 'misere' (play-to-lose) version of almost any game. It's often played with life itself, where the stakes can be pretty high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mis%C3%A8re#:~:text=A%20mis%C3%A8re%20game%20or%20bettel,the%20normal%20game%20rules%20loses.

:ok: Didn't know that! Gracias.


:up:

A more concrete instance of what I stated in the OP: survival games which life itself is!

To both of the two posters above & others

What's the (Platonic) Forms of such games, games im which the point is to be the slowest/weakest?

@Cuthbert's remark on the "misere"-game is enlightening here.

Of course, if you have a game that is quite "mathematical", having those inverse rules won't actually make it much different.

Let's take the example of Poker where the weakest hand wins. Hence people will try to shed anything that looks like a hand in normal Poker. Yet while the cards themselves have a ranking (4 is above 3) and the colors have a ranking also, in any play there would be weakest hand. The game is about probabilities in this version too.

And if you have a game where you can opt not to do anything, just pass your turn, then I guess the slowest game is where nobody does make a move. I can play it with you, let's start now ...and finish when either of us dies. (As not playing a game is quite easy)

There is a chess puzzle called a helpmate where black assists white in arriving at mate of black, so the best black player would be the one that could best lead to his own demise.

It sort of responds to the OP, but not exactly, but it was the first thing I thought of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helpmate#:~:text=A%20helpmate%20is%20a%20type,White's%20nth%20move%20checkmating%20Black.

The other type of helpmate would the husband who helps with the dishes, but that's a survival skill of sorts.

In golf, the winners pay the most per stroke for a round.

On slot machines you are guaranteed to lose and the less money you put in the more you will go home with. I have been winning on slot machines for many years simply by putting no money in them at all.

A few quotes from Wittgenstein:

Sometimes a sentence can only be understood if it is read at the right tempo. My sentences are all supposed to be read slowly.

I really want my copious punctuation marks to slow down the speed of reading. Because I should like to be read slowly. (As I myself read.)

In philosophy the race goes to the one who can run slowest—the one who crosses the finish line last.

My sentences are all supposed to be read slowly.

I started the Tractatus in 1976 and I'm still on 2.15121. About half way through.

There is a chess puzzle called a helpmate where black assists white in arriving at mate of black, so the best black player would be the one that could best lead to his own demise.

It sort of responds to the OP, but not exactly, but it was the first thing I thought of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helpmate#:~:text=A%20helpmate%20is%20a%20type,White's%20nth%20move%20checkmating%20Black.

The other type of helpmate would the husband who helps with the dishes, but that's a survival skill of sorts. — Hanover

:fire:

Superb! I didn't realize until your post that playing to lose is a variation of the type of games I'm attempting to analyze.

Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. — The Architect (The Matrix)

Speed limits on roads? If you drive above a certain reading on your odometer or a cop's speed gun, we're penalized with a fine or a few days of incarceration!

Haste makes waste. — Proverb

Speed thrills but kills. — Traffic Sign

Festina lente (Make haste slowly).

Some examples have curious results. You could play misere football so that any goal scored is awarded to the opposing side. I think the game strategies would be identical, only the goals would be renamed, so your keeper would be 'keeping' the other team's net and trying to stop them scoring 'own' goals. Walking off the pitch wouldn't help. I think.

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

Speed is deemed a virtue for the reason that the world, life, seems to be deadline-based. Expressions like "that ship has sailed", "you missed the bus", "the train has left the station", "too late", "to shut the doors after the horses have bolted" are testament to the need for speed.

That said, slow and steady wins the race (Aesop, the hare and the tortoise).

England has been playing a 'play-to-lose' version of cricket for several decades. We are world-beaters.

We are world-beaters. — Cuthbert

:smile: :sad:

We play a card game called ‘Rage’, where each player predicts the number of tricks they expect to win per round, and is penalised for winning more or less tricks than the prediction. Played over ten hands, this game can be won with a consistent prediction of zero tricks.

Nec caput nec pedes.