How To Win At Every Board Game (And Likely Alienate All Your Friends)

Though it sounds counterintuitive, you don’t ever want to build a hotel in Monopoly; just houses. For that matter, you actually only want three houses on each property you own, and only one color group on each side of the board (unless you’re trying to block someone else from completing a color group). Also, you shouldn’t buy utilities (unless you can get them for cheap).

Just focus on railroads and completing color groups with three houses on each property, which turns out to be the most efficient use of your money. Staying in jail isn’t always a bad thing either, as you can avoid opponents’s monopolies and actually save money. Make sure you’ve done some purchasing already, though, so you can build up your bank. Monopoly enthusiast Tim Darling can give you all the nitty-gritty nuts and bolts of it certain victory.

There’s one easy and crafty way to cut out half of your opponent’s characters on the first move. According to Dr. Matt Prtichard: ask “Does their name start with a letter A to G?” Of course, then you want to ask about gender, and you’ll halve the board again. Another great question is to ask if your opponent’s character has facial hair, as that’s a trait actually shared by eight characters.

The game is designed so that at least five people share most physical traits, so whatever you can do to take out as many people at once the better off you are. Obviously. Your opponent is going to see how effective these questions are and start copying you, but you’re already ahead, so they’re already screwed.

Going first in Connect Four is half the battle to ensuring victory. As long as you drop your first disc in the center column, allowing you to subsequently take at least three of the five center spots, you cannot be beaten.

Assuming your opponent also plays perfectly, the game at this point will end in 41 turns, and you will win with four across. If your opponent doesn’t play perfectly, they’ll probably lose much sooner. It’s as simple as that! Although, it’s not simple at all. It’s quite complex mathematics. Numberphile can tell you all about that in the video.

There’s no way to guarantee victory in Jenga since the biggest factor is the steadiness of each player’s hands, but there are approaches that can give you an extreme advantage.

1. Push blocks, do not pull.
2. Take the center blocks whenever possible.
3. Once you’re out of center blocks, pinch side blocks towards the middle.
4. If you take a block from the right side, place it on the left on top, and vice versa.
5. Pay attention to the thickness of blocks as they vary, and remove the thinner ones when possible.

Plentifun has a few more tricks for you, but those should get the job done.

There’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to win a game of chess with a classic maneuver called the Scholar’s Mate, but it’s always worth trying.

1. Move your E2 pawn to E4.
2. Then F1 Bishop to C4.
3. Queen to H5.
4. Queen to F7.

If you’re playing a wizened chess player, there’s a good chance they’re familiar with this move, so it probably won’t work. However, against most of your friends, you’ll destroy them in four moves and feel like a genius.

President of DataGenetics Nick Berry has a pretty simple suggestion for anyone trying to win a game of Battleship. All you need to do is imagine the playing field like a checkerboard, and make sure to only guess one “color” square until you hit a ship. In other words, leave a space between each miss.

Once you do get a hit, abandon this strategy and start guessing only adjacent tiles to the one you hit. The checkerboard approach, if done for the entire board, would cut your random guessing in half, so it’s a must-do.

Surely there can’t be a way to exploit those adorable river cows in Hungry Hungry Hippos, can there? There sure is, and it’s quite simple: just keep their mouth open. If you push the lever down part way while snagging balls, many will just roll into your hippos open mouth. This definitely goes against the spirit of the game, but you and your hippo will be satisfied.

There’s one easy trick (among many others) to giving yourself a huge leg up in Clue that most people don’t think to do. When someone shows you their card, don’t just mark what’s on the card, but also put the name of the person who showed you and your rate of deduction will increase exponentially.

It’s not expressly cheating but it does kind of defy the spirit of the game. But who cares? You won!

Rule #1: Don’t exchange letters. It’s a wasted turn and it’s virtually never necessary as there are countless two or three-letter words available to you – including the spelling of letters themselves. What’s more, with this strategy, the board quickly becomes bunched up with small words that make it incredibly difficult to build long words off of without running into other words.

And don’t think you’re stuck if you have a ‘Q’ but no ‘U’ – there are a bevy of options in such a scenario as Scrabble master Justin Meyers will tell you. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t do long words if you have them available to you. The best strategy is to try to use all seven letters on your rack for the bonus points, though that is difficult, of course. Ultimately, you want to dictate the flow of the game.

There’s really not a cheat, per se, to win Risk, but there is a nearly unstoppable strategy as laid out by Moshe Callen of Board Game Geek. To win this game of war consistently and with near certainty, you have to be aggressive. Build armies immediately and attack relentlessly, but there are a few factors you have to keep in mind.

You should have at least twice as many units as the army your attacking, and one army for each territory you’re trying to take. However, you want to avoid attacking when there is an equal number of dice between you and the defender because ties go to the defender. Above all, don’t be afraid to take a territory, even if you can’t hold it. You may lose it the very next turn, but the game is about overall gains, and stymieing your opponent is as important as expanding your empire.

Settlers of Catan can be infuriating, but there are two strategies to employ that should earn you a victory. One aspect to focus on is building roads and settlements; meaning you prioritize producing brick and wood (in that order) over all other resources.

The other strategy is to prioritize ore and wheat (in that order) so you can build cities and get development cards. Now, development cards are risky, so the former strategy is more reliable. With that in mind, there are a few more sub-strategies to help out as well.

1. Box people out of their intended routes.
2. If you’re the last person to place, pick a 2:1 ratio port on your first placement, and the corresponding resource on your second. (Never pick a port on your second placement.)
3. Try to diversify your resources as much as possible in the beginning.
4. Don’t use the robber to try to steal a resource you want. Rather, use it to either shut down the person in the lead or to block a resource you’re rich in from other players, giving you a monopoly.
5. Never build three settlements on the same hexagon.