Transcripts (of Day[9]'s Podcasts) - Page 4

Number 2:
Don't see ghosts. This is an other way of saying: don't convince yourself that things are true when really they only exist in your own head. You'll see this a lot of times when an intermediate player starts moving up the ranks on ICCUP. Let's say he's hit B- for his first time ever, and he's playing against an other B or B- player. In his head, he'll say: "Oh no, I'm worried that I'm playing against a better player" and he'll modify his play purely because his opponent is "better". For instance, a friend of mine in protoss versus terran was having a great deal of trouble against vulture harass, so he started to get his forge a little bit earlier, so he could build cannons at his expansions. However, as he moved up and started to play against better and better players, he just got increasingly worried about vulture harass. It's not that the vulture harass was actually doing more damage, he just felt more scared. As result, he started to build two cannons at his expansions instead of one, and then all of a sudden, he was getting his forge even long before his third expansion started. Really, what he was doing, was wasting a ton of money just to alleviate a fear instead of some sort of reality. On the reverse side, you'll actually see players do weird things against worse opponents. They'll throw huge armies in willy-nilly, "even if it dies, whatever, I have better marco anyways" or making like extra defense because "well, as long as I dont lose now, I know I can win later in the game". There is absolutely nothing clever about playing shitty against a bad player. You should play as well as you can against all players. The easiest way to fix this, is to keep a mental note of what you thought was scary in the game. Be it fear against a good player, thinking "oh, I'm scared of a vulture harass" or if you're against a bad player and you thought "oh, I'm scared of him doing some all-in". Keep note of what that fear was or what that thought was, and then re-watch the replay, and see if there was any validity to your claim whatsoever. For me, personally, I used to be terrified of a terran army, but when i went back, and watched the replay, i would go "wow, he had like 20 less medic&marine than I thought he did", and then I built up much more confidence over time when attacking these large medic&marine armies.

Number 3:
Trust your own logic over whatever trends you might see in the strategy forums or the Proleague matches. More importantly, throw away all vocabulary and thought-process used on a lot of these community sites. So many words are tossed around freely, like counter, or standard or unorthodox or cheesy. These words are useful for discussion, you know, giving the people a sense of what's going on. I can say "oh, he played a standard terran vs zerg", and immediately the listener has much clearer idea of what's going on. However, in terms of analysis, it doesnt mean anything for something to be standard or not standard. Why is it that medic&marine is the standard in terran vs zerg? In fact, controlling a mech army is way easier than controlling a m&m army, so why isn't mech standard? The answer is that: none of it matters. You should only be looking for what is clearly correct for you. This means that if you're having much more comfort sticking to lair and going hydra-lurk for a long time instead of getting really fast defilers, then by all means you should continue going delayed hive. You should continue doing whatever feels comfortable for you. What every player should always be doing at all points in time is snacking around on various strategies, just making sure you are aware of what all the possibilities of all the other races are. And then, when you find a strategy you like, you should dig deeply into that and find all the possible nuances and variations and solutions that you can in that style of play. Never ever ever think that you should play standard because it is standard in any sense of the word. Even the use of the word counter i really really hate, because it implies there is an "if A then B" sort of interaction going on in Starcraft, which there isnt. Even saying something like "oh yeah, reavers counter medic&marine really well": Yeah, thats true, until you play against Upmagic, and then he manages to kill all your reavers anyway and you just lose immediately. Sure, going medic&marine against reaver might be tough to figure out, but if you find comfort in doing that, and you feel your play is much stronger and understandable when you do that, then 100% of the time you should follow your own intuition and develop your own style of play.

Number 4:
Keep a very strong awareness of your mental state throughout the entire game. This includes things like panicking when something bad happens or getting a flood of adrenaline when you think you're at an advantage, or even when you get to that relaxed state where you think "oh yeah, I've won, there's no way I could possibly lose". All of these should be slowly weeded out so that way your brain is actually focusing on the game at all points in time. It was actually really funny when I started going to tournaments in 2001: I would do this inner monologue thing that I never did in my normal practice. I would sit down and say: "ok Sean. Focus on your build" And the game would start, and I go: "ok, you can do this, you're a really strong player Sean, dont worry about it man, you've got this. He might be good, but you're good too." And then all of a sudden I would have forgotten my first overlord, because I was busy talking to myself like an idiot. I mean, why on earth am I sitting there, talking to myself mentally in a game, when I have never done that in any practice game ever. Ideally you'd like to be in this state of pure mental focus throughout any game of Starcraft whether it be a tournament game, an ICCUP game, or even an ICCUP game against a player you think is really-really good. This is the place we call the zone. And to get into the zone, you need to spend a very long time working out any sort of tendency or nuance you have that could impact your play. The easiest way to clear out your mind to remain focused as possible is to just keep note of all the extrenous thoughts that can get in the way of your focus. And then, try to work out each one out one at a time until you have razor-focus all game long.

And finally, number 5, which is somewhat of a culmination of everything I've said so far:
Have confidence in your execution, and skepticism and doubt in your analysis. When you're playing the game, you should be convinced that what you're doing is absolutely correct, so that way you can maximize your efficiency with whatever you're doing. Whether it'd be a really strong play or an absolutely flawed play. After the game is when you should look at your play and say "mhm, what did I do right and wrong here, what's a way that I could improve? What's a build that he could have done that would have crushed this a 100% of the time?" That is when you think of what adjustments you want to make for the next game. And of course, in that next game, you'll play with 100% confidence as though everything you're doing is absolutely correct.
A huge issue that a lot of players deal with is that when they are in the game, and they get thrown off just a little bit - maybe they get storm-dropped or maybe they see a strategy they havent seen before -, that's when they start to analyze their play and to make these huge, large-scale adjustments. Unless making that adjustment was part of your plan, don't do it! You need to make sure that what you're doing is something you are comfortable and confident with. That is what's going to maximize your chance of winning, not some last minute, second-guessing strategy you pulled out of nowhere. If, for some reason you do find yourself in a situation in which you feel totally lost, try to choose something as quickly as possible in your head, and follow it through all the way. Then, after the game you can go back and say: "ok, I was totally thrown off by that. What would have been a good response in this situation, or what would have been a good way to avoid this situation entirely?"
That about wraps up the little mindset-spiel I had, so hopefully you guys can use this to clean out your play, and make sure there's no sort of erroneous logic seeping into your analysis, and you can play with as clear and focused a mind as possible.

Thanks for listening everybody, cheers.