How would you feel if you were so good at a game that the rules were changed to undermine your strategy? That’s exactly what happened to the curler Pat Ryan and his team. As told by the Netflix docuseries Losers, Pat Ryan’s innovative strategy was so effective that fans began booing his team for succeeding with it. Even though they were abiding by all the rules, they were, in the eyes of the fans, ruining the game. Eventually, a new rule called the free guard zone was implemented to make illegal the highly effective but boring strategy Ryan’s team had used to win multiple championships.

I suspect history is full of similar examples. For example, as told in the book Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, various rules of modern soccer were put in place to prevent certain tactics. Goalies used to be allowed to use their hands anywhere on the field, a fact which a Sunderland keeper exploited to bounce the ball halfway up the field. The offside rule used to require attackers to stay in front of or in line with not just two but three defensive players. In fact, the offside rule used to apply to the whole field, not just the attacking half. Together, these two archaic rules used to make it very difficult for teams in a defensive position to break out into attack. These rules too were deemed problematic enough to revise, forever changing the way the game was played.