Games You're Good At

Tribune is unusual. It's a board game that I'm good at.

If I'm going to buy a board game, I have to enjoy losing it, because I will -- a lot. I play strategy board games with smart people, and I consistently get my hat handed to me. But this weekend reminded me that I'm rather good at Tribune.

I can't say precisely why. I just have an intuitive feel for the game. I don't win every time, but I'm always competitive. Perhaps more importantly, I always feel like I'm competitive. Every turn I can see what I can do to move towards victory, and it often works out.

My friend Ryan is this way with Amun-Re; he says he just knows what the right thing to do each turn is. He's so good at it that we're in the habit of finishing rules explanations for Amun-Re with, "...and at the end the game you count up victory points and Ryan wins." The first time we played a game without him, we didn't know what would happen at the end.

I don't think this is uncommon. I suspect that most people have a game like this, that they are good at but for reasons they can't explain.

What's yours?