That is, a way of winning that is within the rules but does so by exploiting a technicality in such a way that you aren’t really “playing the game”? I remember seeing something on the History channel about dueling (with swords). A novice had to fight a duel with a much superior and skilled fencer. He trained for the duel by drilling himself to take advantage of one single opening his opponent would occasionally make; then during the duel he remained entirely in a safe defensive stance until his opponent finally gave that opening, allowing him to slash at the femoral artery. He then went back on the defensive until his opponent bled to death. He won, but the duel became legendary as an example of poor style.
Underhanded?
Who in the case here challenged the duel? Didn’t the rules of honor in dueling state the challenged gets choice of weapons? Thus if challenged to a duel by a much superior and skilled fencer, I could say “let’s go at it in hand to hand conflict.”
Why is your example considered poor style? If you are in a fight to the death, which your example seems to be, you do whatever it takes to win.
In poker its called “angle shooting”.
Sounds like a great example of smart strategy. I suspect that there were overriding social concerns that made this be reported the way it was. If more folks had liked the guy who won he’d’ve prob’ly been lauded.
And if you lose in a duel, you go down in history as a “loser”. The nice thing about winning is you are alive. 
In D&D terms you could call that ‘Munchkin Playing’ as now made famous by the series of games.
Example: “Pour boiling water on Anthill! Gain 10,000 XP!”
Hehehe. This reminds me of my old soccer coach, Mr. Gellman. He would always insist that whenever we got knocked over, we wail and scream in pain as loud as possible, in the hope that the ref would call a foul. We referred to similar strategies ever since as “The Gellman maneuver.”
In basketball, the term for this is “flopping.”
The usual term for this in English is “not cricket.” (However, I suppose things that are actually outside the rules are also encompassed by this.)
When I was living in New Zealand some 20 years ago the Australians won a test cricket test match by bowling (pitching) underarm in such a way that the Kiwis couldn’t possibly hit the ball over the fence and score 6 runs. It was perfectly legal, according to the rules, but because it didn’t give NZ a sporting chance to win it met with howls of protest from the Kiwis (and I bet some of the SD Antipodean contingent still remember the event).
As an American I was completely bemused by this, since in baseball it would be standard practice to do whatever it took to win, whether within (or a little outside) the rules.
Of course, even in baseball there is criticism when the opposing side intentionally walks a feared hitter as not being “sporting” . . .
This example always pops to mind when I think of stuff like this - Dennis Conner’s use of a catamaran to beat the New Zealand KZ-1 “Big Boat” monohull to defend the America’s Cup.
http://www.americascup.com/en/acmag/boatdestiny/index.php?idIndex=0&idContent=1705
Conner was challenged to build a 90 foot monohull and brought in a catamaran with a pretty forseeable conclusion. What could have been an exciting race turned into a display of what I’d call “Poor Sportsmanship”. Back in my RPG days we called it “Rules Raping”; do something utterly ludicrous that is still within the scope of the rules, thus unbalancing the game and making it a bore to play.
I was playing pool one day (years and years and years ago), it was my turn, I had no shot, my opponent had only the 8 ball left and it was in the kitchen, so I purposely scratched (which means my opponent had to bank the cue ball off the far rail before they could even touch the 8 ball, unless they’re really good at banking and have a decent shot, it pretty much gaurentees that I’ll get another turn) I was told that was “n***** pool.” I still do it if I know the other person is going to win regardless of what I do, but if we both have a sporting chance at winning, I’ll leave that tactic alone. Legal, AFAIK, but not really good sportsmenship.
As a unrelated side note, a few weeks ago, I was playing pool with a friend, she was going to win no matter what happened, I knew what her next shot was going to be, so as she walked over to line up the shot I put a quarter behind the ball she was going to hit thinking it would make the ball roll a different way… Here’s some advice, don’t do it in a crowded bar, the ball jumped the table and flew about 10 feet in the air, then rolled quite a distance away.
“Dirty pool”
“The letter of the law but not the spirit of the law”
I once construced a Magic deck (thats Magic the gathering, a trading card game for those who dont know) that was built around focing your opponent to shuffle his cards as many times as possible. the theory was that in tounament play you can force your opponent to remove their cards from protective sleeves (note alot of these cards are very valuable, several hundred bucks for some of them)
so the whole stratagy was to force a concession through devaluation of their cards…not particularly nice but I was persoally responsible for several of the early rules changes in magic.
as for deliberatly scratching in pool thats the reason for the “ball in hand” rule, one player scratches the other gets to put the cue any place on the table they want, its silly having a rule that allows a player to use a scratch defensivley,
gamesmanship was the term that sprang to my mind.
and mine
The standard work on this is:
“The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship: Or the Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating” – Stephen Potter
Also known as “Oneupmanship” - the art of making your opponent feel that something, somewhere, has gone every so slightly awry.
Has been made into a corking film with Terry Thomas and Alistair Sim - School for Scoundrels
In the former show The Practice, they called this “Plan B”.
Unsporting