Christmas is right around the corner and we aren’t sure about your family, but for ours, it means sitting around and playing a lot of board games. Now, we aren’t saying we’re ‘flip the table’ competitive, but we do love to keep the family guessing as to how we’re just so good. And luckily, math (and physics) is on our side to help us win a number of games, so we’re going to be sharing our hacks, if you will, to win a couple of popular games. So as long as you stick to the games we’re discussing today, you’ll be outsmarting your family all day long. And we aren’t here to tell you what to do, but we would start playing for some money so you leave with your pockets a little more full. Let’s get started.
Operation
(image via: retro hen)
We’re probably all a little scarred from hearing that awful, dreaded buzzer sound. But Operation is a classic, one that we hope is still causing debilitating anxiety to an entirely new generation. If you find yourself digging out this treasure over the holidays, we have some tips for you to win. First, no matter what piece you are dissecting from the board, it’s all about your form. You’re going to want to stand up, grip the tweezers with your thumb and ring finger, bring your arms close to your body, elbows in, spread your feet and you should be moving sure and steady enough to get any body part with ease. Take that, nieces and nephews.
Clue
A personal favorite of ours, though this game can be quite exhausting. In 2019 computer scientists David and Kyle Hansen conducted a study on the science of bluffing. Basically what they discovered is that if you bluff with your cards, for instance, if you ask the player next to you whether or not they hold the study card knowing darn well you hold that card, you’ve successfully thrown off everyone playing the game. By doing this you’re giving no valuable information to anyone, yet getting all of the information for yourself. At the end of the study they found that if you bluff on at least two categories, you’ll increase your chances of winning by 1.4 percent. (source)
Hangman
(image via: pinterest)
Winning Hangman is actually super easy, in theory, and we can’t believe we never caught on to this trick. Okay, so what’s the first letter everyone guesses? A vowel, duh. And longer words tend to have a lot of vowels making it super easy to guess the word or phrase. So, as Jon McLoone explains, the best hangman words are short and contain the least common letters such as Z, X, Q, and J. The word he recommends? Jazz. And after running an algorithm on over 90,000 words, we trust his advice. Good luck out there. (source)