Destroy the competition on game night with this seriously funny guide packed with handy strategy, tricks, and tips from the experts Games are way more fun to play when you win—especially when you crush your friends and family! In How to Win Games and Beat People, Times science editor Tom Whipple explores inside tips, strategy, and advice from a ridiculously overqualified array of experts that will help you dominate the competition when playing a wide range of classic games—from Hangman to Risk to Trivial Pursuit and more. A mathematician explains how to approach Connect 4; a racecar driver guides you through the corners in slot car racing; a mime shares trade secrets for performing the best Charades; a Scrabble champion reveals his secret strategies; and a game theorist teaches you to become a real estate magnate, recommending the Monopoly properties to acquire that will bankrupt and embarrass your opponents (sorry, Mom and Dad). Funny, smart, and endlessly useful, this is a must-read for anyone who takes games too seriously, and the bible for sore losers everywhere.

We think we’re relating to other people–but actually we’re all playing games. Forty years ago, Games People Play revolutionized our understanding of what really goes on during our most basic social interactions. More than five million copies later, Dr. Eric Berne’s classic is as astonishing–and revealing–as it was on the day it was first published. This anniversary edition features a new introduction by Dr. James R. Allen, president of the International Transactional Analysis Association, and Kurt Vonnegut’s brilliant Life magazine review from 1965. We play games all the time–sexual games, marital games, power games with our bosses, and competitive games with our friends. Detailing status contests like “Martini” (I know a better way), to lethal couples combat like “If It Weren’t For You” and “Uproar,” to flirtation favorites like “The Stocking Game” and “Let’s You and Him Fight,” Dr. Berne exposes the secret ploys and unconscious maneuvers that rule our intimate lives. Explosive when it first appeared, Games People Play is now widely recognized as the most original and influential popular psychology book of our time. It’s as powerful and eye-opening as ever.

Documents the history of the video game Tetris and looks at the role games play in art, culture, and commerce.

"Man is free the moment he wishes to be." -Voltaire In dealing and communicating with other people, we often fall prey to their power plays and mind games. PEOPLE GAMES is a non-technical, easy to read guide (yes, much easier than 'Games People Play') to help you recognize when you are being manipulated by others in your social, family, business, or work interactions. We can be free from other people's power plays and mind games if we wish to be, and if we train ourselves to RECOGNIZE them. A "power play" is a maneuver, usually verbal, that is used by a person to (i) manipulate another person to do something or (ii) avoid giving the other person what they want. This book will teach you how to RECOGNIZE such power plays being used against you, especially the most commonly used ones by other people, and also how to RESPOND to and DEFLECT such power plays. PEOPLE GAMES will teach you how to extricate yourself from secret ploys, unclear motives, and shady maneuvers used by other people, and structure your interactions so that they are no longer clouded by such undesirable things. In doing so, you will be able to protect your personal boundaries, move towards more open and honest communication with other people, and be able to protect your own best interests. Some of the power plays and mind games covered by PEOPLE GAMES are: 1. Dominance/Submission 2. Emotional Blackmail 3. You Owe Me 4. Playing the Victim ...and more!! ***LIMITED TIME ONLY: SPECIAL BONUS CONTENT ("THE NEXT 10 MOST COMMON POWER PLAYS AND MIND GAMES") is also included!

"Games People Played is, surprisingly, the first global history of sport. Wray Vamplew assesses how sports have developed and diffused across continents and centuries, exploring topics such as emotion, discrimination and conviviality; politics, nationalism and protest; and how economics has turned sport into a huge consumer industry. Sport is sociable, charitable and health-giving, but this book also examines its dark side: its impact on the environment, players' use of performance-enhancing drugs and the repercussions of match fixing. Covering everything from curling to baseball, boxing to motor racing, Games People Played will appeal to anyone who plays, watches and enjoys sport."--Publisher's description

For over 130 years the GAA has been at the heart of Irish life. Now, in The People’s Games, John Scally tells the compelling stories of the men and women behind the rich history of Gaelic Games. Since the introduction of television Gaelic Games have become a huge entertainment industry, yet at their core remain deeply embedded in the local community. They shape the national conversation and lift the mood of the country. Hurling, ladies’ football, camogie and Gaelic football are Ireland’s greatest national treasures. Gaelic Games are part of the DNA of the Irish Race, and the people are the beating heart of the Games. This comprehensive collection captures the GAA’s evolving history, the fabled heroes, the controversies, the scandals, the pulsating games, the fans, the centrality of the clubs, and the unending and heart-stopping drama. Full of fascinating insights, amusing anecdotes, thrilling tales and new revelations about famous incidents and epic encounters, this volume brings the people’s games alive in all their vibrancy. Based on exclusive interviews, this captivating compendium explores the rich history of the men and women of the GAA who made it all happen.

Learning a new language can be very demanding, but it can also be good fun, and in between the hard work of language acquisition there are opportunities for breaks from the regular classroom routine where what has been learned is put to rewarding and practical use. Games Language People Play provides teachers with a variety of language games to make the teaching and learning of a new language an occasion for enjoyable competitiveness. There are 110 games in all, ranging in level from Beginners to Advanced. Each game carries an indication of the language skill or combination of skills being employed -- reading, writing, listening, speaking -- and the optimal group size, from as few as 10 students to games suitable for classes of unlimited size. The game's instructional objective -- for example, vocabulary expansion -- the materials needed, a full description and additional suggestions are all provided, with all that remains being for you and your class to enjoy the wonderfully creative ideas that Jerry Steinberg has put into book form for you. Originally published more than 20 years ago, Games Language People Play has continued to delight teachers and students of English every year since then.

What she’s wanted… Sydney Warren is a successful painter of erotic landscapes—just the artful fantasies of a woman whose own life has been stripped of passion. Though she has stayed loyal to her boyfriend, Max, he’s unable to ignite the sparks they once shared, leaving Sydney wanting. Then comes the stranger, a work of art himself, and everything changes. is what she’s getting… With chestnut hair, mesmerizing green eyes, and the perfect body, Colm Hennessy is every woman’s fantasy. He too is aroused, and more intrigued by the beautiful artist than he expected to be—because it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. For there’s something about Colm that Sydney doesn’t know... in the ultimate game of control. Colm is only pretending to be a model. He’s been hired by Max to seduce her—a twisted scheme to test her fidelity. But Max never imagined that Colm would feel something real. As Sydney and Colm’s intimacy grows, as passions neither expected are unleashed, the stakes in a cruel game are raised—and desire isn’t the only thing set to spiral out of control.

A group biography of seven enduring and beloved games, and the story of why—and how—we play them. Checkers, backgammon, chess, and Go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last Go champion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism”; and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white Go stones. Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games—and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.