Confessions of a Game Whiner

One key to happiness – GAMES

It’s true, I’m sad to say – I’m a Game Whiner. {Sob}

I LOVE to play games – old games, new games, most games. I love themes in games; I like the artwork on the boards and cards, the background story or history the game relates to, the colorful pieces and fancy dice, the clever mechanics and scoring mechanisms, a bit of chance (but not too much); I enjoy talking about and reading about and writing about games.

But ------ I don’t like it when my “brilliant” plans go for naught because of someone else’s play just before me. Why do other players always seem to build roads and settlements exactly where I was planning to do so on the island of Catan? Why does someone else build the 6-card track from Los Angeles to El Paso, just before I was planning to? Why does another player draw the exact piece I needed to finish a great Carcassone city? Why did someone buy that 11-value purple Tower that I needed to add to my Alhambra? Why did another player add two camels to his caravan, blocking my beautifully-planned huge territory? How could you draw the “Storm” card, just as I was about to play the “Connection” card with the “Occasion” card and move from San Francisco to London in one turn? Why did you play the Queen of Spades on my Ace of Diamonds on the first Diamond trick led? Why do all you folks keep rolling a horsehead and moving the gray horse, when I have my (hidden) double-bet on Earl Grey? Is everyone reading my mind? Is my gameplay so transparent? Why have I won only ONE game of the 48 games we’ve played in 2006?!

Yes, I’m the whiner in our family game group. How can it be that I study the games, I read about them, I exchange information with others on the web, I research new games, I purchase the games, I teach the new game rules, and I have such love of gaming, but I never seem to win?

-------- Hmmmmm – maybe it has something to do with my whining, feeling sorry for myself. --------

{------ or maybe I’m just not a competitive game-player these days -------}

When I start whining in a game, my wife frequently takes a sticky note and writes “NO WHINING!” on it and holds it up in front of my face. Yeah, yeah, I get the point --- but I’m still losing and everyone’s picking on me, and, and, and, ………… {whine, and whine some more} --- "Want some cheese with that whine?" --- "Where’s my violin?" ---- Okay, okay. Very funny.

Well, I don’t know whether I can change my game personality. The family would probably think I was ill, if I weren’t whining during gameplay. Okay, I’ll TRY to cut down on the whining. I’ll take my lumps silently; I’ll simply adjust my plans when good plans are foiled; I’ll keep reminding myself how lucky I am to play these great games with a great family and how much enjoyment we all receive from the time spent together each weekend. I’ll try to work in a little bit of optimism with my normal pessimism. Now, wouldn’t it be something if that changed my “game luck?”

But, I’m not sure what I would do, if I wasn’t whining during a game. I wouldn’t know how to act! And, I think I’m part of the family’s entertainment when I’m losing and whining.

--- Gerald … near Denver, Colorado; April 2006
aka gamesgrandpa -- A grandpa who is a mile high on gaming