Wargames

Which is worse: that when I play Tic-Tac-Toe with Siena I don't let her win -- or that she still manages to beat me?

Siena's been playing Tic-Tac-Toe for months. And I think that it's a good game to introduce early on. First, it gets kids writing letters, if only "X" and "O." Second, any game-playing is an opportunity to teach rules of good sportsmanship: play fair, obey the rules, take turns, and take winning and losing with equanimity -- which isn't how I put it with Siena, but you get the idea. Third, it's a game that Siena can play with any grown-up, which is great when far-flung relatives pop in and want to instantly connect with their little granddaughter/niece.

But everyone else who plays with Siena lets her win. The most flagrant offender in this regard is Pop-Pop. On our last family vacation, the guy let her win so many times that even Siena started getting suspicious. But how can you fault him? Who would be so competitive that he couldn't let a three-year-old win a head-to-head competition? Who would value anything higher than the happiness of such a sweet, little girl?

Evidently, her father.

It's not that I need to beat the child at anything. It's not that I get any satisfaction out of beating her. It's that Siena can tell when adults are playing for real or just playing around. We all have an intuition as to when we're being patronized or condescended to. And I want my daughter to get, at least from me, the respect that comes from an honest competition. I don't think that Pop-Pop is doing anything wrong. It's just that grandparents and parents have different responsibilities and prerogatives.

So when I play Siena in tic-Tac-Toe, I play to win. And of course, most times the games end in a draw. I probably wouldn't play to win if the game didn't have such intrinsically low chances of anyone winning. But as it is, when we play I expressly play to win. And this certainly hasn't dissuaded Siena from playing. In fact, a marathon session of Tic-Tac-Toe propmpted this post.

And of course, when I win I explain to her where she went wrong. That's another great thing about playing Tic-Tac-Tow: it's such an easy game to understand that even a three-year-old can grasp the basics of tactics and strategy -- and learn from her mistakes. That's where this gets interesting.

We just played about a dozen games. I won once. Siena won twice. How in the heck, you may ask, did this happen? Isn't Daddy kind of smart? And thirty years older than his daughter?

All I can say is that sometimes you get cocky, and forget the one lesson about Tic-Tac-Toe that Siena's learned quite well: always play defensively. If you simply look to keep your enemy from winning, you will never lose. Not that this is a universal rule: as Marty Schottenheimer could tell you, you can't win at football by playing not to lose. But it works well in Tic-Tac-Toe, and Siena's learned it. She knows to go wherever she has to so that I won't get three ina row, and she follows that rule pretty much all the time. Daddy, however, is too smart for his own good. He tries to set up the can't-lose positions, where you can win in either of two moves -- and ends up overlooking the two-in-a-row that Siena's got lined up nicely. Good girl.

And even when she plays Daddy, Siena gets to win now and again.

Maybe it's time to dust off Risk.