Basic Trope: The winner arrogantly brags about their victory against their opponent.
- Straight: Dave beats Jason in a game of chess and arrogantly rubs it in his face.
- Exaggerated:
- Dave beats Jason in chess and endlessly brags about being better than Jason in chess, making a party not unlike that of a New Year's celebration, Fourth of July and Sweet Sixteen combined.
- Dave defeats Jason in every kind of game and brags about beating him.
- Dave beat Jason at chess fifteen years ago. Every year, on that same day, Dave barges in Jason's life in the most destructive and loud way possible to remind Jason he will always be a loser. For extra irony points Jason may have built an extremely better life for himself than Dave's during this time, but Dave absolutely refuses to let Jason live down this one, otherwise inconsequential, defeat.
- Downplayed:
- Dave beats Jason in chess and makes a snide comment on Jason's defeat while bearing a rather smug grin. When told to shake Jason's hand, he grips rather tight.
- Dave saves his gloating for when he is in private.
- Justified:
- Winning is everything for Dave, and because of this, he doesn't care about sportsmanship.
- Dave is arrogant to the point that he thinks being a sport makes him weak.
- Jason gloated about his victory the last time he won, Dave is glad to turn the tables on him.
- Dave comes from a culture in which this sort of gloating is normal and expected.
- Dave and Jason are going to compete in future matches as well; Dave is attempting to get under Jason's skin in order to ruin his focus and gain an advantage over him then as well.
- Jason was taunting and mocking Dave throughout the whole match.
- Inverted:
- Dave loses to Jason and he brags about how he lost the game.
- Graceful Loser
- Subverted: Dave boasts about his victory and then congratulates Jason for doing his best.
- Double Subverted: He was only lying and proceeds to brag about his victory.
- Parodied: Dave takes out an ad on Facebook or other very public venue to continue bragging about his victory.
- Zig Zagged: Dave goes from complementing on Jason's effort in playing chess to ridiculing him on losing to him.
- Averted: Dave doesn't gloat about his victory.
- Enforced: "Dave is the pompous jerkass rival. Let's have him brag about his win against Jason in a game of chess."
- Lampshaded: "Okay, I get it. You won! Now please shut your mouth already!"
- Implied:
- Jason sleeps with earmuffs and earplugs and even then occasionally it's possible to hear someone saying "I won!".
- Dave is handed a rulebook prior to the match. The book is open to the page on proper victory etiquette.
- The post-game victory celebration isn't shown, but the audience's disgusted reaction suggests that Dave was mocking Jason for losing.
- The film's climax game ends with Dave winning the game, but after the Time Skip he is even more down in the dumps and depressed than Jason. Sure enough, two scenes later we get the explanation that Dave turned his victory pyrrhic by overkilling it with the gloating and he got blacklisted from playing for life.
- Dave is seen arrogantly showboating after his victory, but in the next match, he's conspicuously absent.
- Invoked: Dave wants to bait Jason into hitting him and getting into legal trouble, so he rubs his victory in his face for that exact purpose.
- Exploited: Jason knows that Dave is extremely arrogant and proud, but at the same time, he's also aware that he can't beat Dave, so he encourages him to showboat in hopes that he gets banned and that he's replaced for the next tournament with someone that he can beat.
- Defied:
- Dave refuses to brag about winning since he sees Jason as a Worthy Opponent.
- Dave sees winning as the natural sequence of events, and hence takes no joy in victory. Therefore, bragging is also pointless.
- "You win, fair and square, and it's all cool. It's just the way the game went, and fair's fair. You start singing that you won and calling me a "bitch", though, and you're gonna need that prize money to pay for your hospital stay. We clear?"
- Dave sees 'sportsmanship in competitions' as a virtue, and so swore that no matter what, he will not brag because it's against his principles.
- Dave thinks that bragging on like that was such a childish thing, and he's a grown up now. So he's past that.
- Discussed: "Don't you just hate it when people brag about defeating someone?"
- Conversed: "Every time you see one of these showboating assholes in a sports film, you know they're going to be the bad guys."
- Deconstructed:
- Jason refuses to play chess against Dave due to his bragging, which leads to Dave accusing him of being a Sore Loser. Their relationship becomes bitter from then on.
- People get tired of Dave's bragging really quick, and either stop watching him play or start cheering for Jason to win out of sheer spite.
- Dave gets his win overturned for "Unsportsmanlike behavior."
- Jason snaps in a rage and then snaps both of Dave's arms in a dozen pieces each, rendering him unable to play ever again. Years later, Jason is still not sure whether to be disgusted or proud to have humbled Dave in such a brutal manner.
- Reconstructed:
- In turn, Jason's eventual victory causes him to make a big point of bragging; and at this point Dave isn't even mad.
- Dave's obnoxious over-the-top bragging proves to be an attraction as there are some people who just want to watch the victory celebrations.
- Jason snaps in a rage, only for Dave to turn the tables and beat the crap out of him, having the legal right to do so in self defense, and then gets yet another thing to brag about.
- Played For Laughs: Dave beats Jason in a coin toss and stuffs this chance victory in Jason's face for the rest of his life.
- Played For Drama:
- Dave completely destroys Jason's army and nation in war and then kills Jason's family in front of him to rub it in. This makes Jason swear revenge on Dave for killing his family.
- Dave drives Jason past his Rage Breaking Point with his relentless gloating, even when Jason flat-out begs Dave to stop because he's made his point. The subsequent attempted murder is a moment of passion that both men regret for the rest of their lives.
- Played For Horror: Jason's stressor that turns him into a Theme Serial Killer was Dave gloating that he won in a moment when Jason was already at the edge of his rope.
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