Not that it happens very often, but I hate being accused of cheating, even in jest, mostly because I don't see the point of it. I would have no satisfaction in winning if I knew I had cheated.

DH and I tried playing Lexulous with his mom. After the first couple of games we were labeled as cheaters because she wasn't winning. I tried explaining that it takes a while to get back into the swing of things with a game like Scrabble, but she blew me off. Soon after she just got real snippy and then stopped playing completely.

She still sends invites to other online competition type games and we've decided to ignore them.

Wow, is New Guy playing at something? I repeat, what a tool.

WRT letting the kids win, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Depends on the circumstances, the game, and whether or not our kids are still learning the rules. We have two kids who want to win, and since they can't both win every time, it's not worth our while to throw games to them on a regular basis.

The Expulsion from Eden, Written with Internet Catchphrases (A short comic)

My family had evening games of Michigan Rummy and Monopoly when I was a kid. No cheating was allowed, but we were expected to help our little brother who couldn't read yet. Sometimes that meant helping him to win, which was actually fun.

At Christmas this year we were playing a bastardized version of "Catchphrase" where each person got a point for saying the right thing instead of teams. After smoking the group pretty good, my dad declared, "NO MORE Entertainment or Food! Aimee keeps smokin' us!" But my dad is very strange in that he makes what we like to call "The Greg Rules" for damn near any board game. The "Challenge Rule" in Trivial Pursuit is HUGE in my family and has caused many an argument between teammates - usually my mom and dad. The only games I have yet to see him change are chess and checkers.

Hubby and I are not allowed to be on the same team for any trivia/obscure knowledge-based game. We always get assigned to opposite teams so we'll cancel each other out. Takes all the fun out of it.

When I played physical sports with Emmett when he was little - mostly handball - I had to rein in my game considerably. But that seemed like a fair handicap. Also, I slowly introduced the basic notions of strategy (such as pulling the other player out of position by going side to side) until he got very good and could beat me straight up.

Most of the board games we played were more about chance than strategy so he had an equal chance of winning. But I would throw games because it was more about the social engagement and learning new stuff. There was no way he could compete with me when he was younger and it was no fun for him to lose all the time.

Now he can beat me at chess pretty regularly.

He was pretty obnoxious about rules interpretation so I did have to institute a rule that I was the only arbiter of rules or we wouldn't play at all.

He's totally okay with losing baseball games, but he hates losing to me at tennis.

JZ is super competitive and can be a bad sport when she loses at board games. She grew up in a cut throat board game family.

I would say my POV with playing games with kids is more about teaching them how to play and making it fun for them. So I'm more like the momma tiger which will mostly kill an antelope and then let the cubs in to finish the kill.

We played some board games when we were kids, but the ones that stand out most in my mind were card games, specifically cribbage (played with Dad usually) and rummy 500 which we would all play. I don't remember ever cheating or having my elders (everyone else at the table) fudge their play for my benefit. If I missed a chance to play my cards against someone else's, I was SOL.

If I was playing Solitaire and cheated and someone caught me, they'd scold me for not playing it right.

ETA: The first time I ever double-skunked Dad at cribbage was a huge milestone for me!

I just set an appointment to call someone at the same time I'm supposed to be meeting with my boss. Oops.