Concurrent sports
MOST SPORTS ARE PLAYED against opponents, except for things like pole vaulting and gymnastics. Football pitches eleven people against eleven other people. Table tennis pitches one person against one other person. Then there are sports that are played at the same time as an opponent. Sports like darts and golf. When you play darts or […]
Penalty shootouts
I’M NOT A BIG FAN of football. I do watch the occasional match, and the one thing I hate is the penalty shootouts that follow a draw. It’s unfair and humiliating for the player who misses the goal, who’s then blamed for his team’s defeat. And so I propose the following modifications: First half of […]
Mind reading for adults
ONE OF YOUR PARTY leaves the room – the mind reader. The rest of the assembly choose an object in the room, and the mind reader returns. ‘Is it that one?’ you ask. ‘No,’ says the mind reader. ‘How about that thing there?’ ‘No,’ says the mind reader again. ‘Or that thing?’ ‘Yes,’ says the […]
Winning at Hangman
HANGMAN IS A GREAT GAME, and can be played anywhere. All you need is a piece of paper and a pen. But the winning strategy is counterintuitive. Most players will give you a long word to guess, on the assumption that choosing long words means you have many more letters to find and so will lose […]
Heads you lose
I USED TO ENJOY games like Tetris, where you battle against the computer to try to improve your score. But I became increasingly frustrated, as however good you get, you can only end up losing. Every game of Tetris continues until you fail. The same goes for a huge range of traditional arcade games – […]