play to win

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to play to win (third-person singular simple present plays to win, present participle playing to win, simple past and past participle played to win)

1. (sports) To play in an especially competitive, committed manner, focused intently on winning.
   • 1992 June 6, Clifton Brown, “Basketball: Blazers Beat Bulls in Overtime to Even Series”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 July 2012:

     "[W]e just got totally outplayed. Instead of playing to win, we were playing not to lose."

2. (idiomatic, by extension) To make a special, determined effort to achieve general success or a particular goal, in life, in one's career, in negotiation, etc.
   • 1856, Charles Reade, chapter 24, in It Is Never Too Late to Mend:

     "I play to win. I am playing for human lives. This, sir, is the torture, marks of which you have seen on the prisoners; but your inexperience will not detect at a glance all the diabolical ingenuity and cruelty that lurks in this piece of linen and these straps of leather."

   • 1988, David Mahoney (chairman, Norton Simon Inc.), quoted in The Executive's Book of Quotations (Oxford, 1994), →ISBN, p. 298:

     "The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is the difference between the successful executive and the security-hunting, mediocre man.

   • 1997, William Bernhardt, Naked Justice, →ISBN, page 355:

     And Bullock could care less about the judge's threats. Like always, he was playing to win.

   • 2009 December 16, “People Who Mattered: Rahm Emanuel”, in Time:

     Rahm Emanuel was certainly a surprising choice for chief of staff — he's a hard-cussing, old-school-campaign knife fighter and pragmatic congressional arm twister who plays to win.

• do whatever it takes, pull out the stops