The day my 9-year-old checkmated me in under 10 moves.

I love games. Sports (playing and watching) and video games (Zelda) for sure, but board/card games are more prevalent in our family. It’s such a great way to spend time with your kids, at any age. My boys are now 9 and 6, so games like Candyland, Sorry, Dinosaur Escape, Outfoxed, and Trouble, just to name a few, are squarely in the rearview mirror, collecting dust, waiting for their new home.

We’ve been going through phases. So, typically, one game will dominate our lives (and take over our dining room table) for weeks at a time. Rat-a-tat cat fits this bill nicely and is a solid go-to, specifically when we want to introduce an easy-to-learn game to someone new. Thank you Kevin Dono for the intro there. Dungeon Mayhem was a staple in this house for a while too.

Here to Slay also reigned in our house for a while and still gets some play time. Century Golum is another that’s back in the fold for us. Pretty sure many of these got on our radar from Brooklyn Game Lab, so thank you!

More recently, Flip 7 was introduced to us by Hannah De Simone and instantly became a hit. This one feels like Blackjack to play, and its small learning curve made it the game of choice to introduce to all 3 grandparents in the span of a week or so.

Stratego and Mastermind are games I put on my kids’ radar because I distinctly remember playing those two with my Dad all the time. Classics. Similarly, Crossbows and Catapults were a favorite for Kevin Murphy and me, so I made sure that became a “not on the list” birthday present for the kids, who quickly loved them as much as we did. Most rooms in our house growing up had rugs, so we’d play in the kitchen, basically under my mom’s feet. When my Mom found out we got this game, she politely asked to speak to our kids and told them, “Make sure you play this game in the most inconvenient place possible in the house, ok?”. Fair enough, Alice Murphy.

Monopoly gets its own paragraph. Super Mario Monopoly is a great way to introduce Monopoly to the younger kids. My 6-year-old is beyond proud to now be playing the full-grown-up version of it, which, for us, is a Simpsons edition my parents got for my brother and me, a solid 25 years ago. It’s also our go-to, nightly game when visiting my in-laws in Florida.

Other favorites over the years: Mouse Trap, Ticket to Ride, Clue (Disney Villains version), Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, Exploding Kittens, all the games pictured above, and Forbidden Jungle, which, honestly, usually kicks our butt.

Then there’s adult gaming. Settlers of Catan has always been a favorite, and I’m committed enough to the game to have bought this shirt. Codenames is a great party game. More recently, I found my people up here, and we’ve been playing Betrayal Legacy weekly. It’s my first Legacy game, and I love the way the story builds on itself each week, where, depending on what happens, some elements become part of our stories while others don’t. It feels like the “real-life” version of a choose-your-own-adventure book.

Breaking news: Chess is another favorite of ours. My 6-year-old loves it too. I even the playing field by playing with just my king, pawns, and whatever 1-2 other pieces he allows. (no queen, rooks, etc)

My 9-year-old and I have played a bunch, and he’s never beaten me. UNTIL THIS MORNING! He moved his queen, and as I studied the move, I realized what had happened. I was in checkmate, like, less than 10 moves into the game. It was a slower-developing version of the “Scholar’s Mate,” the move in which you can checkmate someone in 4 moves. While I had heard of this before, I learned both the name and how it happens today. I immediately thought of Robb Stark after he captured Jamie Lannister in Game of Thrones, telling his Mom, “By the time they knew what was happening, it had already happened.” Well done, Noah. I’m very proud of you!

So, what did I miss? What games should we look at next?