Maddux Gambit
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The Maddux Gambit is when a player or coach in sports sacrifices material (sometimes even allowing one or more 'points' to score) in order to gain another kind of advantage
The Maddux Gambit is so named because one of the first descriptions of the strategy refers to a pair of situations in which Houston Astros baseball pitcher Greg Maddux pitched to Jeff Bagwell. These are the events as described by George Will:
"Leading 8-0 in a regular-season game against the Astros, Maddux threw what he had said he would never throw to Jeff Bagwell—a fastball in. Bagwell did what Maddux wanted him to do: he homered. So two weeks later, when Maddux was facing Bagwell in a close game, Bagwell was looking for a fastball in, and Maddux fanned him on a change-up away."
In chess, a gambit is the sacrifice of material (such as a pawn) in order to gain another type of advantage in the game (such as a positional advantage).
This strategy is also used in sports, where a player or coach may sacrifice material (sometimes even allowing one or more 'points' to score) in order to gain another kind of advantage.
[edit] Examples
A simple example occurs frequently in baseball when there are baserunners on first and third with no outs and a hard ground ball is hit to the shortstop. The shortstop will often let the runner on third score, and choose instead to turn the double play. Although a preventable run is allowed to score, the team on defense has gained a positional advantage in that they have recorded two outs and eliminated a runner from the basepaths.
In another example, a sacrifice in one game in order to achieve an advantage in a game played at a later date might be done in a situation with a lopsided score, or when the later game has more importance than the current game (for example, it occurs during the playoffs).
