How to Win Games and Beat People: Demolish Your Family and Friends at over 30 Classic Games with Advice from an International Array of Experts

by Tom Whipple

Games are supposed to be fun-but everyone knows that it’s more fun when you win, especially when you crush your friends and family.

In HOW TO WIN GAMES AND BEAT PEOPLE, science editor for The Times Tom Whipple gathers inside tips, strategy, and advice from a ridiculously overqualified array of experts on how to come out victorious in a wide range of common family games, board games, and more.

A mathematician explains how to approach Connect 4; a racecar driver advises on how to take corners in slot car racing; a mime shares trade secrets for the best Charades; a scrabble champion reveals his strategies; and a game theorist recommends the right Monopoly properties to buy in order to bankrupt and embarrass your competitors.

Funny, smart, and endlessly useful, this is a must read for anyone who takes games too seriously, and the bible for sore losers everywhere.

Genres: Nonfiction, Games, Self Help, How To

192 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2015

Reviews

[Travis Bow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three reasons why this is the perfect bathroom reading material:
1) It will make you laugh out loud, sometimes maniacally (a sound which is generally enhanced by the acoustics of tile and glass)
2) Every chapter takes somewhere between three and seven minutes to read (as do certain other bathroom activities not incompatible with reading / laughing)
3) Prominent placement in the bathroom will ensure that your game-night guests know you mean business (never underestimate the power of intimidation)

With some real and helpful tips for winning games mixed in with "expert" advice that will fill your little head with interesting factoids and conversation starters, this is the perfect gift book, bathroom book, or I'm-bored-and-the-internet's-out-and-I-only-have-a-seven-minute-attention-span book.

[Nefeli]

How to Win Games and Beat People is exactly what it sounds like. It is a book that analyzes a few well-known games and gives you the strategies you need to follow in order to win. If you want to read it because it seems funny: go ahead, it has its moments. But if you want to read it because you genuinely want to win at everything, including pillow fights and thumb wrestling, maybe you should think about getting some professional help.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Light toilet reading. 2-3 pages chapters of advice on about 50 common games.

[Melinda Brasher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting, with information about and quotes from the experts in each discipline, some of which is rather tongue-in-cheek, especially about things like apple bobbing and stone skipping. I love the "how it ends" section for each game—most quite funny. Good humor, but also physics, math, strategy, logic, and lots on interesting tidbits. Great book.

Oh, and thanks to this, I spent entirely too much time alternately laughing at and being amazed by 20Q.net, the AI internet program that can play twenty questions with you. Go look it up.

A very strong 4.5 stars.

[Kevin Leung · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book isn’t really about learning to win games, but it does have a few tips in there. It’s mostly amusing stories about hobbyists and subject manner experts talking about games, like a surgeon approaching Operation. Each chapter is quite short, so it makes for quick, light reading.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

This is an informative, entertaining book about how to win various games, complete with some useful tables for Scrabble. Some of the sections are more useful than others, and some games were left out that I'd thought would be there, like Mousetrap.

I'm not sure if it's as useful as I'd hoped, but still a lot of fun.

[Wendi Lau · Rating 5 out of 5]

My competitive, eleven-year old loved it. She actually practices Monopoly so she can smash her friends and enemies. This book was right up her alley.

[Blake Blackwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dominate the Holidays

This book will give you some very pragmatic advice on classic games like Monopoly, Battleship, and Connect Four. Other games such as stone skipping or eating contests may be out of reach without a lot of discipline and free time. Overall a good book, although each chapter was fairly self-contained. I wish there would have been a bit more of a strand to weave it altogether.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can completely understand why I was gifted this book. British wit, sarcasm, and Games! It should have been a home run for me. I don't know why but it wasn't. I didn't ever get invested in the book. There were occasional tid bits that I could actually use, there were interesting fact but I was never fully committed to this book. It actually took me months to read.

[Johan Dahlbäck · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and fun read. A lot of humour and some science. I had expected some more depth and more examples in the strategies, and more board games than games like "pooh sticks", "drinking games" and "sand castles". I don't think the knowledge from this book will help me in any games I do play.

[Sun Protostellar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended by the Freakonomics Radio. An easy and light reading. Unfortunately there's hardly any mathematical explanation for games that warrant them.

I for one will start practicing tossing coins to consistently getting 4 rotations, in order to better my chance of winning bets.

[Mo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed podcast interview too

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was both funny and well-written. The strategies were not that ground-breaking (everybody knows to go for the middle spot in tic-tac-toe) but I still found this very enjoyable to read.

[Robin Ver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some sections are interresting, like the ones on risk, rock paper scissors and monopoly, but others provide no advice on the game they describe.

[Deborah Cleaves · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glib. The premise and promise of the title is not lived up to. Toddle on past this one.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was good

I haven't even started and eye eye yet yeet I think it is an okey dokey in my words yeet

[Tom Denker · Rating 3 out of 5]

More fun than useful. Except maybe the part about Jenga.

[Geordie Cowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enough humour to encourage people to have fun and keep reading; enough tactics to instill a clinical approach to any game situation.

[Matt Suder · Rating 2 out of 5]

Idea better than the execution. Good insight into origins of the games discussed.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun little book to read in spare moments. Thirty-odd games are covered here, from classics like Scrabble and Monopoly to advanced stuff like Risk and Diplomacy, and even a couple non-games like Pooh sticks (a game popularized by A. A. Milne, I guess, wherein you drop a stick in a river and watch it go).

Each game is given two or three pages, with a short intro followed by some strategy or, in a few cases, just an interesting story or two. Chess, for example: This book isn't going to give you really any help at becoming better, but instead it tells a couple anecdotes about high-level chess players and why they keep playing the game, even though technically computers can beat almost anyone at chess nowadays, so why bother? Of course there are plenty of reasons to bother.

I'd recommend this as a stocking stuffer or coffee table book for the fan of games. Easily read or thumbed through and passed along to the next person.

[Augusta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a selection of very short chapters analysing techniques of games. It was interesting to read about how to approach games in ways that you wouldn't normally think to, e.g. a computer scientist's approach to Battleship. There were parts that were quite funny and it had some interesting facts about the creation of some of the games.

I enjoyed reading about the technique to approach games likes Monoply, Connect 4, and Scrabble. Less interested in the strategy of stick races and slot car racing.

[Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant. I love Whipple's approach to gathering super geeky info on stuff that doesn't really matter much (i.e. Monopoly). Using it all to my advantage will be the real trick with this one. The kids and I were already playing with the world record holding paper airplane (distance) design but I can't seem to get the same effect with my rock skipping.

[Henk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very amusing book (like the title suggests). Very fun to read with good grounds in proper strategy. Light read, but still interesting, especially for those interested in game theory, or those interested in never losing again.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’ve ever wanted to know how to be the most hated person to play games with, this is the book for you.

You’ll learn how to win consistently in Rock, Paper, Scissors. You’ll learn how to make the very best sandcastles. You won’t learn how to win in checkers though.

4/5. Read it in spurts.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would you like to play a game?

[Anthony Faber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strategy for various games. Sort of amusing.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brenda: I am ready for the Hangman rematch.

[Don Packett · Rating 4 out of 5]

A light and entertaining read for sure. You're not going to walk away from all games being the true hero and demolisher, but you'll definitely walk into them knowing a few tips and tricks.

[Hercho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, quick read with good humor throughout.

[George Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun, light read. The author has a great sense of humor, and portrays the opinions of the experts well.