One of Lolli's birthday presents this year was "Blokus". Incidentally, it is pronounced "BLOCK-us" and not "BLOKE-us" as I had originally thought. If my pronounciation was correct, I guess the British version of this game would have to be "DUDE-us" or something like that.
Anyway, I had picked this game thinking that if it had won over ten toy awards, it must be good. Even though I thought it would be a bit advanced for her, I figured she could grow into it.
It turns out that Lolli is a whiz at this game. She can manipulate the pieces to fit in her favor (think back to those Tetris days!) and totally block me from my moves (I guess it's not unfathomable that four year olds can strategize).
The other day, Lolli and I had introduced the game to Air Boss. The three of us played it laying down on the floor of her bedroom (as you can see from the picture, with Mimi the duck watching). Air Boss and I were so intent on dominating the board and playing offense to each other's colors that we weren't really paying attention to what Lolli was doing with her pieces. She won.
"That was just beginner's luck," I had thought to myself. I had also thought that if Air Boss and I weren't so ruthless with each other and paid a bit of attention to Lolli, we MIGHT have been able to block some of her moves.
Well, today Lolli and I introduced the game to 'Shroom. Although 'Shroom understood the basic concept of the game (be the first to place all your tile pieces on the board while preventing others from doing the same), he didn't really have strategy. She won. Hands down. And embarrassingly, I WAS paying attention to her moves. It's just that her brother was also putting down some moves that utterly blocked me!
Okay - so maybe I'm not the best player and may never learn to play chess but I don't necessarily think a four year old is an equal opponent for me.
Yeah, you're right. She's not my equal.
She's way better.
1 comment:
Watch out! She's going to use those same strategy skills to get what she wants from you guys!
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