I’ve never heard the term Winner’s Remorse before, but I’m sure it’s been already been coined. I experienced it last night slightly and this morning in a big way. I guess it’s bound to happen when my opponents are usually my friends.

My games against my weekly match against Paul went

W, 15-8
W, 15-6
W, 15-4
W, 15-6

I was especially motivated to win today because for the first time since we’ve begun playing regularly again, he won 2 games in one session last week. He probably should have won a third game since he was up 13-8, but I ran the table to win 15-13. I probably only play at around 60% of my top game against him now and I’m winning easily (with the occasional random loss).

Despite my motivation to win, I really was only giving it about 70% effort today, though I will admit I was putting forth more concentration than I usually do. In each of the games, I had 11 points before he had 5, at which point he became very vocal with his frustration – with his misses and with my consistency. This is when I started experiencing this Winner’s Remorse.

And I let up.

I actually started making less of an effort and allowed him to score more points. Particularly in the third game, I gave no effort to finish the game four times serving at 14-1 until he finally put up a few points on his serve.

Last night in my league match, I experienced some Winner’s Remorse, but not quite to the same degree. My opponent, maybe the top player in the league besides myself, happens to be an angry, vocal guy. I destroyed in him the first game, 15-6. But when it got to be around 13-4, I stopped giving it my all. The second game surprised me a bit because it turned out to be one of the most fun games I’ve ever played. I was ahead 12-6 and we had a really long point, maybe 12 shots each, in which he dived twice and ended up killing it on a spectacular running shot that barely came off the back wall. At 12-7 then, I felt like it was over. I couldn’t beat that. Sure enough, he fought back to make it 13-11 and we each served probably 5 or 6 times at that score before I got an ace and an easy kill for the win.

We left the court and a crowd had gathered watching our game. Someone asked me what the final score was and that twinge of Winner’s Remorse hit me. I actually felt bad telling someone I had won directly in front of my opponent. In those situations, I’ve always felt more comfortable saying, “he whooped me,” than something like, “I won by 12.”

I have felt it in Ultimate, too, especially in the years where I played against Brother. After he transferred to UMD, the Main U matched up against them frequently. And it was always easier for me to shake hands/hug after the games where I’d lost.

What’s odd is that I do prefer winning, by an enormous margin, but this Winner’s Remorse is starting to get to me. Maybe it’s pity, maybe it’s sympathy, but at some point it might cost me more than a meaningless league game so whatever it is, I want to get rid of it.