My immediate family is aggressively good natured about board games. We apologize for conquering people in Risk. It's weird.

At Christmas, we played Scrabble with my 7 year old 1st cousin once removed. I was his dictionary, so he didn't try to lay down words that weren't. But we explained to him several times that his game-play had to improve significantly before he started talking that much smack without sounding completely ridiculous

I very often get bored by games (and usually can't be assed to have a strategy, which makes them all the more pointless) so I will make up rules to entertain myself. This works well with a 7 year old trying (& so far failing) to learn how to cheat. But I refuse to play with those who take games seriously, because I am simply no fun for them.

Hubby and I love a game called Chronology, where you have to place events in their proper place on the time line. It's great for history geeks. The game says to go until you have 5 cards in the correct order. Hubby and I agree that this is what wimps do and play to 20 cards. We just need to find more people to play it with.

I'd be too busy looking up "Your mama," in Latin.

AHAHAHAHAHA!

I will note that my bad-sportness is solely related to board games. Take me bowling, or to a bar for an evening of darts or pool, and I am happy as a clam despite the fact that I'm mostly pretty crappy at all three (except for the occasional improbably perfect throw or shot, executed flawlessly, that would cause a titled expert to break out in hives, promptly followed by at least three displays of risible incompetence). I'm cheerfully fascinated by people who are good at them and positively chuffed to be trounced by a great player.

Whereas my midwestern friends in college would look hurt at a quip which wouldn't even draw blood in HS.

I don't think you can attribute that to being midwestern. Lots of midwestern people quip. In a razor-sharp manner, even.

I have this really weird thing where I cannot unscramble letters well. just don't see words in masses of letters unless they are already in the right order. I am horrible at scrabble, boggle, newspaper jumble puzzles and any other game like that. It used to bother me a lot, too, because people always expected me to do really well at those games because I knew a lot of words. I am so bad that when we had to unscramble words for homework (in high school, whatever) I would take the list of words we were supposed to end up with and count the number of 'e's and then try and match the words up that way.

I don't think you can attribute that to being midwestern. Lots of midwestern people quip. In a razor-sharp manner, even.

Well, some of them were from Pennsylvania. That doesn't count as midwestern, right?

Dadgummit, don't tell me that midwesterners aren't nicer. I know they are.

Dadgummit, don't tell me that midwesterners aren't nicer. I know they are.

"Nice" and "razor-sharp wit" are not mutually exclusive, my dear.

I need to teach all of you Hanafuda! It's an awesome Japanese card game.

Although the first time I was at Yaohan in Chicago, I stepped into a Japanese bookstore to look for some cards. They, all offended, told me "We wouldn't sell that kind of game here." Hee. It's a gambling game. But I didn't know! I liked it.

Anyway, it has Buffista ties, because during the first F2F in Chicago I ducked out to make a detour to J. Toguri's to pick up a deck. And then Betsy and other folks trailed me in there, so I ended up dragging you into a Japanese store.

So it's a flower card game. Twelve suits, one for each month, four cards in each suit. Two cards have value and two have zero points. The basic play is a matching game. You have cards in your hand which you try to match with those on the table. Then you flip one over from the remaining stack, still trying to match the table. It's a partners game, and highest point total wins.

So at that level it's simple to learn. But then there's a whole 'nother level where there are several sets of three cards of different suits (three red flags, for instance) and if you gain all three then the opposing team must subtract fifty points. So there's all this strategy around getting those cards, particularly corner cards, and preventing your opponent from getting them.

Then there's a wildcard.

I love it because it's simple on the one hand and deeply complex on the other.

Fun fact: Nintendo originally started as a maker of these cards. My sister still has a set from them. They're shaped like western playing cards and also have the point values and english translations on them. Mine are smaller and harder (the better to smack dramatically on the table) and more traditional, so it's harder to teach as you must recognize the suits. Which is not too hard; they're all decorated with the same flower.