Are Games of Dexterity just Potential Competitions?

R. Caillois, the author of what is perhaps the most important theory of the classifica-tion of games, criticises the study of games from the point of view of interest in their educational effect on the grounds that the classification of games involved is dubious and insensitive to the motives behind them. He regards the classification of games ac-cording to kinds of dexterity as typical of a mistaken approach. He claims that games of dexterity are competitions, whether actual or potential and suggests a different classification according to three basic motives behind games (chance, dizziness, pretence). The article offers an exploration of the applicability of Caillois‘s theories us-ing the example of vybíjení [a Czech game similar to Pig-in-the-Middle] one game od dexterity expressed in different specific games(Vybíjená, Roubovaná, Koulování, Na jelena) in our collection of Czech children‘s games. Its conclusions may be summarised in five points.
1. Caillois‘s four basic motifs of games offer insight into the way one game activity, vybíjení, may serve different basic motives using different rules. 2. vybíjení us a game of pairs may serve dif ferent motives, but retains certain principles. It can be used to identify who is better or best in the group (Vybíjená); it can also be used to replay points of mutual appeal for attention in a group other than the identification of victor andloser: the circulation of appeal for attention [Roubovaná); orgy of appeal for at tention (Koulování); getting together to bully the victim and sometimes the punishment of the victim (Na jelena). 3. In a particular game, therefore, more than one of Caillois‘s motives may be in play, and in parallel, without them being arranged hierarchically. 4. Sensitivity to the hierarchic structure of motifs in a particular game according to Caillois evidently offers us a different way of theoretically concretising the point in a given game than is offered for example by the notion of psychological capabilities used by K. Groos. 5. Sensitivity to the functions of one game of dexterity in the hierarchical structure of motifs of different concrete games turns our attention back to their special constituent element - vybíjení [breaking down, dicharging]. What makes it so attractive that so many game possibilities are devoted to it, and that it uses so many different modes?