During the 25 years I've been involved in the hobby, the subject of playing skill has been a common topic of discussion and debate among wargamers. And during these conversations, statements like, "he's tactically proficient but weak strategically", or, "he's the best (or worst) player I've ever seen", etc., arise often.

The people making these statements seem to believe them (I know I do when I make them), but I've sometimes wondered if there are any accurate ways we can measure the validity of such statements. In other words, are there any criteria that we can establish, with a reasonable amount of certainty, which will give us a true indication of any player's relative skill? I believe there are. Consider the following hypothetical example.

Let's say that three Europa players want to play a game of FitE/SE. They decide that two of them will play the Axis and the other (considered the most experienced) will play the Soviets. Also, due to space and availability factors, the game is to be set up and played at one of the Axis player's houses on weekends. Let's further postulate that all three players are FitE/SE veterans, fully knowledgeable of the rules. Finally, let's say that during the resulting game the Soviet player resigns in late 1942.

Two weeks later, I get a letter for the EXchange column of TEM, written by one of the Axis players in the game above, stating that he disagrees with the opinion that the Axis has little chance to win FitE/SE given competent play on both sides. He goes on to describe that just the opposite has been his most recent FitE/SE experience. (And at the next convention he gloats that he and his buddy whipped some guy who thought he was pretty good.) Is this a valid and accurate claim? I don't think so.

It has been my experience that two players will usually defeat one, all other factors being equal. Two players can bounce ideas and plans off each other. The two can also divide the workload, significantly reducing the organizational and managerial problems inherent in a game the size of FitE/SE. This, in turn, minimizes their mental strain and associated fatigue when compared to the single player. Over the course of a marathon gaming weekend, this can result in an enormous edge for the team.

The location of the game also confers a tremendous "home-field" advantage. The home team can spend as much extra time as desired between gaming sessions examining the situation and developing plans using the actual game map. The "visiting team" must rely on their memory. This also raises the ugly spectre of accountability.

The visiting team must rely on and trust the home team to ensure that the positions of the units don't mysteriously change between gaming sessions. And I'm not necessarily talking about cheating. One of the most honorable and honest players I know seems to suffer from an odd form of gaming dyslexia. When discussing and demonstrating plans at the game board, he regularly cannot remember where the counters started prior to his demonstration. This causes problems.

Indeed, accountability is probably the greatest obstacle to making reasonable claims of any nature concerning player skills or, the outcome of any game. That is, if players cannot be sure from one turn to the next that all their pieces are where they're supposed to be and that all their moves are legal, how can any accurate conclusions be drawn at all?

This makes claims and conclusions from games played at conventions the most spurious of all. The time pressure is enormous, chaos abounds, and dozens of people are always milling about. Under such conditions, who can say what's going on at any given moment in the game?

I can remember playing SE as a member of a Soviet team one Origins. In the course of a single Axis turn, a 12-10 panzer division managed to get from the swamps around Leningrad and into the battle around Stalingrad. As a Soviet player, I would ordinarily have missed this anomaly but for the fact that my command had just been transferred from the Leningrad sector to Stalingrad during the turn in question, so I was intimately familiar with that particular 12-10.

Apparently, somebody on the Axis team ordered that 12-10 south. And as it entered the sector of each successive Axis commander, the commander saw the unit, said to himself that it must go south, and away it went--into the next sector. This was repeated through 3 or 4 sectors until it finally wound up attacking around Stalingrad. I have no doubt that the Axis players were acting in good faith. They had orders to send a 12-10 south, they found a 12-10 in their sector, and they did their job.

Many players simply play for the fun or history of it, but most Europa players are competitors. I also believe that they like to think of themselves as good at what they do. But, given the magnitude of the problems I've mentioned above, how can they be reasonably certain that their opinions are justified? The answer is: playing by mail (hereafter PBM).

After years of playing both face-to-face (FTF) and by mail, I'm convinced that the by- mail format is the best way to derive both a relative measure of playing skill as well as achieve true play balance. As might be expected, PBM has both benefits and drawbacks.

PBM usually takes longer to play than FTF, sometimes much longer. However, with the proliferation of PCs, modems, and information networks like GEnie, playing time can be significantly reduced. Also, PBM requires more time and energy from the players. Data entry and cross-checking can be tedious and lengthy (but, as Napoleon said, "Genius is the capacity for hard work."). Finally, phone and mailing costs can often be expensive. But what about the benefits?

Accountability problems are rendered insignificant because all units and their movements are verified in writing at all times. There is no "home field" because all players have access to the same data for the same amount of time. And since hard copies of the game are kept, natural disasters like the cat jumping onto the map become mere nuisances.

That said, for a game like FitE/SE I recommend teams of 3-4 players drawn from the same local area (say, Seattle vs. Chicago) to minimize communications costs. I also recommend getting an impartial third party to resolve disputes.

So, if you want to find out if you're really as good as you think you are, then challenge someone to a PBM match.