the Clipperton Suite: the winning tactic keeps the wins from being real

The trap named exactly: "the very tactic that let him win in the first place kept the wins, and in a way Clipperton himself, from being treated as real." The gun that made him unbeatable is the same gun that voids every victory, so the more he wins the less he exists. It's the syndrome the institution most fears in a body — a route to the top that hollows out the getting-there — and Clipperton is its purest case, a champion whose championships, and finally whose person, the sport declines to register as having happened.