My family was all about pinochle. My folks babied the kids until we were up to speed, and then it was every person for his or her self. We generally went with 3-person instead of 4, because we'd rather bid on the pot than team up. When there were only two people around we'd usually play cribbage or backgammon. We weren't competitive to the point of tears, but we generally played to win. Still, when my folks were ill, I'll admit to not focusing as much on winning as usual.

Now I have a whole lot of games, including a lovely mah-jong set a friend brought back from China, that hardly ever get used. My local friends and I keep saying we'll have some board game nights, but it hasn't happened yet. Wiis are also becoming a thing. There are four of us in my apartment complex, two of whom have wiis and one of whom will be buying one this month. We're talking about setting them up so we can play one another from our own apartments. An introvert's heaven!

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

Well, yes, but niceness mitigates the willingess to draw blood.

If I'm ever in the neighborhood, I'd love to play. My friends in law school stopped playing Trivial Pursuit with me when I identified Patty, Maxene, and Laverne before they finished reading the question. Probably a fair result, but they picked the wrong trigger. I mean, I did my undergrad honors thesis on popular music during World War II -- of course I'd know who the Andrews Sisters were.

When in college playing Trivial Pursuit, people were amazed that I knew that the highest navigable body of water is Lake Titicaka. I was like, "Come on - once you learn that, how can you forget about Lake Titicaka?"

Chronology, where you have to place events in their proper place on the time line.

I've played this game! I won, partly due to luck and partly due to the fact that most of the people playing knew very little ancient and medieval history, and I found anything before 500 AD remarkably easy, given my background. It's a pretty good game if you like history.

We were so bored in the summers growing up that Nutty and I taught ourselves to play canasta, which is a total old-lady card game.

Liese, the nintendo cards were part of a Connie Willis Yuletide fic I just read!

Well, yes, but niceness mitigates the willingess to draw blood.

Harrrrrrr. Mitigates the taking glee in the drawing of blood, perhaps.

I don't let my 6 YO nephew win games, but I don't play very seriously either. So if it's slightly strategic (like checkers) I pick a piece at random and move it. And we do discuss some of his choices. "If you move that piece, what am I going to do? And if you move this piece instead, what will happen?"

It's more interesting playing something with both my brother and my nephew. Because my brother & I are trying to beat each other, while still giving the nephew a chance.

Among the adults, we vary how cutthroat we are depending on the game. But there's a lot of forming alliances to take down whoever is winning, and bluffing even in games that don't technically require it. Like, consulting the rulebook and making "ooooh, that's interesting" noises just to make people nervous.

I think our family policy is that cheating is okay as long as you confess (i.e., brag) after the game is over. Oh, and I think that there has to be some risk of getting caught. If you're the scorekeeper you can't just write down the wrong numbers; that's no fun at all. We don't actually cheat that often; it's just that when someone does, it's kind of awesome.

Yeah, there was plenty of blood drawing in the midwestern gameplaying circles I inhabited. We were just polite about it afterwards.

Liese, the nintendo cards were part of a Connie Willis Yuletide fic I just read!

Too funny! I would never have thought it was so ubiquitous! Hee.

Yeah, there was plenty of blood drawing in the midwestern gameplaying circles I inhabited. We were just polite about it afterwards.

No lie. Same with the Southerners I play with.

There is a family legend that I am a big cheater when it comes to games. This is taught to the young ones as Truth. The fact is my family can't stand it that I often beat them and so they came up with a reason that soothed their egos. So, everytime someone calls me a cheater, I just tell them that if that's what they need to believe to sleep at night, so be it.

I wanna play Chronology!! I'd totally rock that game. Jeopardy had a British History Timeline category earlier this week, and I aced it.

I remember playing canasta with my grandparents when I was around 4th grade or so, and also played pinochle with my aunt, uncle, and parents about that same time.

In high school, the big card game was euchre, but I didn't find anyone who played it until I started working here in the early '90s--a group of guys played every Wednesday in the cafeteria, and I'd sit in as their replacement fourth if someone had to bail.