I was a (semi-)competitive player two decades ago (Tekken 2, 3, TT) during the golden age of Tekken; for the uninitiated, the challenges are multiple layers: 1

I was a (semi-)competitive player two decades ago (Tekken 2, 3, TT) during the golden age of Tekken; for the uninitiated, the challenges are multiple layers: 1. The vocabulary of the game: there are two dozen or so characters, each with dozens of moves. Each move comes with its own attributes (e.g. hit points, latency). If you are anywhere near competitive, you need to memorize all of the moves and attributes, in the hundreds. Some of the detailed analyses count the latency in frames (60 game frames in a game second), and a few frames difference does make difference in match results. 2. The grammar of the game: the game boils down to predicting the opponents next move and the best to counter it. There is a path dependency in the game but it's weak i.e. what your opponent did ten moves ago may not affect your current decision aside from the current state of the game (hitpoints left, location on the stage). Weak path dependency means that you can model the game as a Markov process P(opponent's next move| your character attributes, opponent's character attributes, opponent's style, game state) If you are competent, the only unknown on the right side of the pipe is "opponent's style". Based on your observed probability of the opponents moves thus far in the game, his regional background (i.e. Japanese), etc, you are supposed to estimate opponent's style. The more accurate the estimate is, the better you can counter or parry his moves. 3. The meta game: Once you know the opponent's style and the opponent knows you (given everything else in the probability function above), what should you do? You need to choose a different character, so that the opponent has to learn your style again. Any learning comes with its sampling cost, and your goal is to deal maximum damage while the opponent is learning your style. In order to do so, you need to prevent any kind of shortcut in opponent's learning, e.g. transfer learning. Transfer learning is possible if your new character is similar to your first character. Thus, you need to master completely different characters. Another is to adopt a completely different fighting style for a given character, but this is easier said than done -- people are surprisingly predictable unless something (i.e. different character) forces them too. Another aspect of meta game is the psychology. Players get stressed, nervous, shocked as humans do, and make sub-optimal decisions. Overall, the game is fun but surprisingly complex and competitive. Of course, I wrote above can be applied to other games and 'games' (e.g. starcraft or trading). Knowing how difficult it is to compete on the international level, I am truly impressed by the Pakistani team.