I think that falling into "playing the man" occurs most often when one has repeatedly presented overwhelming evidence for one particular position, and a person who has taken the opposite position either fails, or stubbornly refuses, to acknowledge the evidence and persists in even more aggressively advocating their own position, which has been shown time and again to be completely untenable. It's often a bit hard to keep from becoming exasperated, and expressing that exasperation by calling the person's intelligence or integrity into question.

Don Firth