The Lydster, Part 131: Connect Four and Monopoly

The Daughter just lacks the cutthroat instinct for Monopoly.

connect-fourAn MIT Student Creates a Robot That Plays Connect Four for a Course Final. And it wins fairly often. But it’s not playing The Daughter, who beats me a good 2/3s of the time. For those of you unfamiliar, the goal is to get four of your checkers in a row, in any direction. (In the example, black has a Connect Four diagonally.)


She was home from school recently for a teacher conference, and her friend came over as well so that her parents could go to work. The last time I suggested we play Monopoly, she tried it and quit after an hour. But she’d played at her friend’s house recently, and liked it.

She was winning, too, while her friend was losing. But instead of knocking her friend out of the game, The Daughter kept giving her money. Eventually, this caught up to The Daughter’s bottom line, when she landed on some of my hotels, and I ended up winning, though it took hours before I finally wiped her out. She didn’t want to be a quitter, but I wouldn’t have minded if she had relented an hour sooner. She said she wasn’t good at the game, but that’s not entirely true; she just lacks the cutthroat instinct.

The Lydster, Part 122: The Games People Play

I decided to play Lydia in Yatzhee, and she she beat me the first time out.

I’ve noted that I like to play various games with The Daughter, especially at the point she can play competitively with me. She can play the board game SORRY and Connect Four (VIDEO) straight up, meaning she can beat me as often as I can defeat her.

I had always beaten her in Chinese checkers, and even when I played her recently, she was playing in what I thought was a haphazard way, moving sideways when she could have jumped forward. But then she set up multiple jumps and actually beat me, by a single move.

Didn’t enjoy playing checkers with me, because she didn’t seem to grasp it. Then one day she beat me. No, she CRUSHED me. She still had 10 pieces to my two when I conceded.

I decided to play her in Yatzhee, and she she beat me the first time out. I won the next five games, but then she’s been winning half the time, so it’s worth it for both of us to play.

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