Rev into over-..confidence?

Dueling Network:
I decided to play a couple of rated duels and with my anxiety I tend to get nervous (highly) when dueling 1000+ rating/exp rooms. I decided to go for it, nothing's going to happen if I lose. Surprisingly, I came out on top! To keep the momentum going I tried my hands again and what do you know? I won. Feeling quite happy about myself I make a room and click on the first name that pops up. It ended up being a generic "! ! ! ! !" guy with an average rating/exp. As we drew our opening hand I looked at his deck zone and saw the number 54. I laughed in my head saying to myself, "Wow, this will be an easy win" only for my fingers to hover over the letters W-O-W. He opened really well, something I couldn't come back from. His turn resulted in Shi En, Blade Armor Ninja, Great Shogun Shien and Solemn Judgment. This is where my winning streak ended. Long story short, I was too overconfident.

Remember when you faced that 100/0 guy, lost to his Wind-Ups and thought, "Wow, he only got lucky. He's also using a tier 1 deck. No wonder I lost." Even though luck might have been an issue, there is also the possibility that you lost simply because he was the better player. You have to take every opponent as a serious competitor. Do not let your focus slip because you think you have the upper hand before playing.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying being confident is a bad thing, but being too confident is something you have to watch out for. I often talk to people who are experienced in this area and I feel that a large percent of them turn out to be arrogant and ignorant. Do not be like that, keep your feet on the ground. Do not cut down on practice either, participate in tournaments to stay on top of your game. If you keep respecting every opponent and keep practising I'll guarantee success and I know you want that.

Questions for this little topic: Have you ever been overconfident during a duel? If so, have you ever lost because of it?

I'm always overconfident and arrogant although most of the time I don't mean it.
I joke about that a lot. I have never lost a duel because I was overconfident, however I rarely lose because I misplay. I swear the only times I lose are when I get sacked. P_P

Yu-Gi-Oh! is all about who has the better hand right now. Although you can win if you play your hand well in any case... but then you get sacked, and it's annoying because you would have made an epic comeback with that crappy starting hand of yours... but nope!

I miss 2008. D:

In a duel, what's worse: Being overconfident about your plays, or having too little confidence in your plays?

Spinda wrote:

In a duel, what's worse: Being overconfident about your plays, or having too little confidence in your plays?

It's probably best to be careful. Aka, having medium confidence.

I take every opponent seriously for this reason.
Even those that really are about as skilled as a fence post.

You may know exactly what a netdeck can do against you, but the moves aren't that complicated to learn and are hard to counter a decent portion of the time.


I remember the good-old days of a few formats ago where I'd still be able to pull off wins with my old 60-card Heroes build xD


And of course being under-confident.

Walking into a few traps on the basis of overconfidence is recoverable a good portion of the time; whereas if you're under-confident you'll try too hard to avoid walking into traps and overestimate your opponent's face-downs to where they'll be able to totally overpower you with their massive amount of resources.

But I do agree, middle ground is best. Don't overestimate what is most likely a bad trap/bluffing spell, but don't underestimate a possibly deadly trap.