I'm a Loser

A new NBER paper by Steven Levitt and Thomas Miles concludes that there is an important skill component in poker. The two economists look at year-to-year results in the World Series of Poker -- an annual tournament that's open to anyone willing to pay the entry fee. They find persistence in players' performance, which indicates that skill is important. If poker was purely luck-driven, players who finished near the top one year should be randomly spread out the following year; but they're not. This result doesn't surprise me; many of the games I play have a luck component (such as dice and cards), but that doesn't mean that skill plays no role. (As an interesting aside, Leveitt and Miles point out that several studies find that there is virtually no persistence in the management of mutual funds.)

Seeing this study was somewhat timely, as I've been thinking a lot this week about my (lack of) skills as a gamer. A few weeks ago I was describing the Avalon Hill game Diplomacy to a colleague at work. He was surprised when I told him that not only was I not a strong player, but that I had never won a game. It reminded me of a discussion we had about a year ago, when he asked me what games I was "good" at. And I had a hard time naming one.

I'm twelve years younger than my brother, Dennis, and, growing up, he never took it easy on me when we played games. I was OK with that. In fact, (aside from helping a new player with the rules and basic strategy) I don't understand people who are afraid to play to win. (Being rude, of course, is a different matter altogether.) I learned early on, as a child, that I had to be able to enjoy playing a game -- win or lose.

Perhaps that "just enjoy the game" attitude handicaps me in some way; maybe it robbed me of a "winning attitude." But I really don't win all that often. So, when my friend asked me what games I'm good at, I was stumped. For the sake of discussion, the definition of good might be that you win more than your "fair share." So, you'd expect an average player to win a two-player game 50% of the time or a four-player game 25% of the time. Since I'm usually the rules guy in my group, I can think of a few games (such as Kingmaker) that I "know" better than most people, in the sense that I know the rules, the cards, and the odds. But (at least for me) that doesn't seem to translate into victory.

Pressed for an answer, I told my colleague that I was "good" at Avalon Hill's History of the World. My recollection was that I had won that game more than my "fair share" of times. Then I started playing History of the World at GamesByEmail with a mixture of long-time friends (such as Al, Steve, Jeff, Andrew, Tom and Mike) and some strangers that I met at BoardGameGeek. From November 2010 through mid-May 2011, I managed to lose 15 straight games. A couple of them were close-run things that could have gone in my direction, but most weren't. Zero for freakin' 15 in the game that I thought I was "good" at.

Which is a long was of saying that I finially won game number 16 by sneeking out a one-point last-turn victory over Tom, who is good at the game despite that fact that he's over 30 years younger than I am and just learned the game last fall. Maybe it's because he doesn't have an older brother.

Wall Street Journal Validation

A July 2nd article in the Wall Street Journal by Weekly Standard writer Jonathan Last discusses war-strategy games. Mr. Last summarizes the history of board and computer war-strategy games (such as Sid Meier's Civilization series) and a number of Avalon Hill classics (such as Diplomacy).

The article is interesting enough, and provides a nice history of these games for the casual observor. But what I find interesting is my reaction: I immediately forwarded the article to the gaming group (including Al, Steve and Steven). Given that there isn't a thing in the article that these folks didn't know already, I asked myself "why?" And the answer I came up with is sort of interesting.

But first, let me note that this reaction isn't that unusual. Within hours, a BoardGameGeek user posted a forum message alerting other gamers to the article. Similar articles in the past have also generated a quick posting at the Geek.

I think that these types of articles provide a kind of validation to embarrassed gamers. Let's face it: non-mass-market board gamers are a relatively small group. While the Internet and places like BoardGameGeek make us feel more "plugged in" and less like social outcasts than 20 years ago, we're still a little out of the mainstream. How many people at work play golf? How many watch football? How many belong to a book group? How many play poker? Now, how many play boardgames that aren't available at Target or Wal-Mart? Most of us don't even know how to describe our hobby. "My friends and I played games on Saturday.... No not really like Monopoly or Life ... more 'adult.' .... No, not *that* kind of 'adult.' ... Oh never mind."

Now, reduce the number of people in your hobby even further by being a wargamer. Most coworkers can understand a colleague who plays a game like Settlers or Puerto Rico as being an eccentric gamer -- similar to people who play competitive Bridge or Scrabble. But I rarely discuss my wargaming hobby with my workplace friends. (The one exception would be describing Kingmaker to a coworker who asked where I learned how to navigate office politics.)

Articles like Mr. Last's confirm that we're not completely relegated to gaming in our basements and weird geek-conventions. We're right there in the mainstream (or at least on page W9 of the Friday Journal). He even used the term "grognard" in the article.

I wasn't forwarding the article to Al to let him know that Henry Kissinger played Diplomacy -- Al already knew that. I was sharing some validation of our hobby -- and us.