I'm not say the way he did the martial arts thing is the way to go. Personally, I wouldn't be able to pull it off because I don't think I would be able to face the other players and not feel bad about what I was doing.

But, by his definition, and by those set up by that martial arts sport, he did win, and he got the title/paper to prove it. What can you say, some people like titles/papers more than the actual process :)

Nope, his ability to fight _was_ superior. He used every advantage possible while staying within the rules of the game. That's how competitive games are played.

I have a lot more respect for something like Doug Lenat winning a 1981 Traveller (pencil & paper RPG) Trillion Credit Squadron space navy warfare competition by using an AI program to come up with a strategy that followed the rules but was totally unlike what anyone else was doing: building massive numbers of small, cheap, individually weak, disposable/suicidal ships, rather than designing a smaller traditional fleet of big, expensive, powerful capital ships.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=14095

For one thing, the strategy he came up with is not unlike the use of suicide bombers in real life conflicts. I expect something similar will apply when large numbers of small, cheap autonomous drones start being deployed. It has real-world applicability. It was also effective, I believe, in EVE Online. Plus, it was an interesting application of technology. It wasn't just "shoving".

By comparison, Ferris' shoving tactic is virtually useless outside of the context of a ring-based martial art competition. (Maybe if you got in a fight on the edge of a cliff, or on the roof of a building, or next to a pool of sharks...)

Perhaps, but only in a fleeting "I'm the reason they patched that map exploit in 4.01" sort of way." Exploiting a one-time temporary imbalance in a game system doesn't make you a lifelong great player. As an illustration, who's the more respected NBA champion, Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant?