huh, not probably shocking to anyone, I won't tolerate cheating at any age. If they want to play a game, we sit and play it and play by the rules.

Agreed. I'm not a big one for letting kids win either, but I'm pretty good about getting age appropriate games, where you really shouldn't have to (or flat out can't).

I can't imagine playing Risk with an 8 year old, but I would hope someone at that age or beyond (barring special circumstances) would be able to handle losing. If not, they are going to have a rough time in this world.

I think Parker was so upset because he and his mom had an alliance (which he broke) and then she literally squashed him. It was a good lesson, in some ways.

I played a game with BFFs niece over Christmas. It was interesting, you had to earn these cards in different colors and denominations and then use the cards to get stuff to win the game. The interesting thing was that there were different levels, so if you were level one, it took 2 blues and a green to get the stuff, but if you were level 4, it took 2 blues, a green and 3 purples to get the stuff. It was good because it let people of different skills could play the game. Of course, the niece was totally sneaky and won the game because she claimed that she didn't have enough to win.

Wow. I also got all five apples to oranges questions wrong. I think I favor oranges and felt that the questions were orange defaming questions. But it turns out no! I can have my orange and eat it too. Or, err, something.

Actually I have oranges, apples, and bananas in the house right now. I should go get one. But which...

My mother just wouldn't play games with us if she didn't think we were at a competitive level. We were teens before she'd play Scrabble with us.

We played a game of Scrabble after the funeral (Onyx edition--flashy) and my sister is now branded a big old cheater. We went in without a dictionary which is just a recipe for disaster, and she pulled some dodgy words she swore were okay in Facebook Scrabble. Which, no one can play from inside the US, so we couldn't check up on her. She lost (not to me) as a result of the last play. It was ugly.

I will not cheat at games and get very offended when people accuse me of it. I've had opponents flip the Scrabble board over because I was beating them too handily. They forgot they sucked. My sister is still hurt that her rep is so tarnished. I believe she believes "ch" is a word, but she's just wrong.

I don't think I'd actively let a kid win, but I would suggest better plays for them, and might not play as cruelly as I would against my sister. Not that I was up to anything good at that last Scrabble game.

Hubby was indeed raised by wolves--at least, wolves at the game table. In a choice between winning the game or harming a co-player, the decision always went to harming the co-player. I initiated a tense holiday conversation once when I chose to win rather than send my sister-in-law back to the beginning. Fortunately, I was able to deflect that by scolding them all for trying to get me to interfere with Hubby's play, as he and I should always have each other's backs and protect each other, even on the game table.

A very assertive family, Hubby's.

Alpen:

New Guy totally threw me under the bus with the meeting he wanted me to cover. He swore I wouldn't have to say anything, but they (exec bigwigs) pressed me for dates I didn't have to hand. When I came back to my desk to get the info, he was sitting at his, pretty as you please.

Well, at least everyone in upper management knows he was late today. Not a secret I have to keep.

I remember when my parents took away the rule that they couldn't use words I didn't know in Boggle or Scrabble, but I don't remember how old I was. Maybe 10 or so?

New Guy is just asking to get punched in the dick, isn't he?

I got a reputation for cheating briefly when we were playing with the kids in New Mexico all the time. But I didn't cheat! I was just that good! And, okay, admittedly, we were playing my family's traditional game that no one knew the rules for before we taught them. It's not entirely surprising that I knew all the suits and who was likely to have what card and they didn't. But see above re: not throwing games. They just had to get better at the game. Which they did. And then I didn't win so much. But I swear I never cheated! Hmph.