play to win

Verb

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. To play in an especially competitive, committed manner, focused intently on winning.
   • "[W]e just got totally outplayed. Instead of playing to win, we were playing not to lose."1992 June 6, Clifton Brown, “Basketball: Blazers Beat Bulls in Overtime to Even Series”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 Jul 2012

   Synonyms:

   do whatever it takes, pull out the stops

2. (broadly, idiomatic) To make a special, determined effort to achieve general success or a particular goal, in life, in one's career, in negotiation, etc.
   • "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."1856, Charles Reade, chapter 24, in It Is Never Too Late to Mend
   • "The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is the difference between the successful executive and the security-hunting, mediocre man.1988, David Mahoney (chairman, Norton Simon Inc.), quoted in The Executive's Book of Quotations (Oxford, 1994), p. 298