Sometimes you win competitions with preparations and your intellect.

Sometimes you win them with malicious compliance.

Check out how this person got smart with the judges and won.

“Please save your questions for later so you get credit for them” or do as you want I guess”

Setup
This happened while I was in middle school at a certain math tournament called “math battle”. To tell the story, I need to first explain the rules. I’ll try to do this as briefly as possible.

The rules are similar to other math tournaments, with two main features.

Some context of the contest.

First – it’s a team competition, and every battle goes between two teams. Second – every solution has to be presented by a speaker, and refuted by an opponent from the other team.

To get points as a speaker, you present your solution. To get them as an opponent, you refute the correctness of speaker’s points by spotting mistakes in their solution and getting points for these mistakes instead of the speaker.

The main rule!

When the speaker is done presenting, they have to say “presentation over”. This is to avoid any confusion and interruption from the opponent, as any mistake noted before these words can be spotted by the speaker and fixed on the spot, thus giving no points to the opponent.

Overall, the point distribution is managed by the judge.

Here’s what happened..

Story
As this is a team competition, there are rules that prohibit players from being in the same role more than twice. Because of this, our captain decided to delegate presentation of the extra problem they solved to me.

They explained the solution to me (I got abt half of that) and sent me on my way to the blackboard.

In this state, the solution barely holds, and the opponent sees that.

The opponents started being mean.

When I start making mistakes, they interrupt my presentation to point that out.

As I’m aware of the rules, I try to notify them: “Please save your questions for after the presentation is over”.

This helps a bit, though only a bit: the second I misplace a digit, I hear another correction. “Please save your questions for after the presentation is over”.

She was done with it.

At one point it becomes really irritating, as it’s hard to present a solution when you barely understand it AND there is someone constantly noticing the mistakes.

When I’m almost done presenting the solution (now as full of holes as swiss cheese), I take about three seconds to catch my breath and try to say “presentation over” when at that perfect moment when I open my mouth, they interrupt me again.

So she got smart with the game.

Cue malicious compliance.

Instead of finishing what I tried to say, separating the section when speaker gets points from the section when opponent gets points, I decide to stand back and watch.

The opponent obliterates my solution, telling why it does not work, and the way it should’ve been solved. Instead of arguing, I simply say “You are right, that’s how you supposed to do it, thank you”.

She figured it out..

And when they’re done, they indicate the end of their rebuttal by saying
“I agree with the solution to the problem after corrections made~”

at which point I interrupt them with
“Oh yeah, presentation over, you may ask your questions now”.
Not getting what I was implying, the opponent finished their rebuttal and returned to their team.

Now is the time the judge distributes the points.

The results were shocking!

Judge: “Ok, the corrections made by opposition are significant, thus worth-”

Me: “I’m sorry, but all the corrections from opposition were made during the presentation.”
There is a brief silence in the room.

Judge: “… Oh, you’re right. All points go to the speaker.”

And the cherry on top!

The most precious moments were when we heard the captain of the other team scolding my opponent for their impatience.

We won that battle, sadly not thanks to that maneuver, though that was the highlight of the game.

Delightful! She won with her instant smartness and tricked the opponents successfully.

Let’s check out how the Reddit community received this story.

This person doesn’t mind when others mess up.

This person loves the victory.

This person loves the way the post is written.

This person shares a personal experience.

This person loves this kind of story!

Woohoo!

She won with the smart brain on her!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.