Sunday, February 26, 2006

Weekend Gaming

My daughter taught her cousin and friends how to play Apples to Apples. I joined for a while, but it tends to get repetitive. OK, it was amusing that one of them was tipsy and couldn't stop giggling. They, on the other hand, can play this for hours without getting bored.

She also played Set. I looked on during the first game. Unlike some, I can actually keep my mouth closed while others are playing Set. This wasn't good enough, because my daughter could still tell by my eyes when I found a Set, and this bothered her. I was impressed with her friend's Set finding ability, so I joined the second game and won by a small margin. This was the closest game I'd played in a long time.

Am I bragging? No, not really. Set hits people in a particular area of the brain, and you have it or you don't. There's plenty of other things where I don't; this one I do. Actually, you can probably learn to get better at it if you really care. I'm sure there are plenty of others who could beat me.

Parents who can play well and refuse to "play badly" need to choose the right games to play with their children, so that the kids have a chance of winning once in a while. As the kids improve, the games improve.

Eventually, if they are not spoiled and have not given up playing games because they don't always win, they will start beating you, even at the harder games. This usually happens somewhere in their teens. It's partly due to their having grown up, maybe a little due to you slowing down. But it's fine and good.

Of course, then you have to move to games where you have a chance of winning once in a while.

Yehuda

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