Y'all.

Last week my principal approved my dream course: a semester-long elective on math games and art at the middle school where I teach.

I am ecstatic! For the next nine weeks, I get to spend one period each day just playing games with 8th graders and investigating the math that they contain. After that, we'll be creating math art inspired by some of my favorite artists, such as Regolo Bizzi (pictured). I can't imagine a more fun class to teach.

I was wondering how to start the course. What math topic should I introduce first? And I settled on one of the most fundamental questions that a kid can ask: Is this game fair?

So I used the simplest game I could think of to investigate that concept: Sum Dice

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My first year of teaching, I really had no clue what I was doing. I was terrified to teach my first lesson, since I had no idea what my students did and didn't know. So I grabbed an activity that I had first seen in my Master's program: The Product Game.

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Years ago, a teacher friend sent me an online version of the game Nim. "Try it out!" they said innocently enough, "See if you can figure out the strategy!"

The game seemed simple enough, basically just a set of three rows of objects. So I gave it a shot, and I lost. And then I lost again, and again. I finally walked away from my computer, a broken man. 

In the years since then, I've moved cities and schools, had three kids, and STILL CANNOT BEAT THIS GAME.

In preparation for this newsletter, I finally gave in and looked up the solution. And having seen a lovely explanation from one of my favorite mathematicians, James Tanton, I think I can provide a way to turn this maddening little game into a meaningful mathematical exploration for you and your child.

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Periodically I pull out a math game in my 8th grade classes, usually when I have 20 minutes or so to kill after a field trip or standardized test.

In the past I've shared Magic Squares and The 100 Game, both of which I really enjoy introducing to my students. But I know how to beat both of those games, so I don't enjoy them as a participant in the same way that I enjoy games like chess or Blokus.

But there is one game I use with my students that captures my full attention: tic tac toe. But not the boring, solved version that you learned to beat when you were 6. I'm talking about Ultimate Tic Tac Toe.

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My greatest parenting regret is that I taught my son how to play War.

Don't get me wrong, he loves the game. In fact, that's precisely the problem. For weeks after I taught him the rules, War was the only game he let us play, and it got old fast.

If you haven't played War, it's a ridiculously simple card game. You deal the whole deck out to two players, and then both players flip over the top card. Highest card wins. If the cards are the same rank, both players put three cards face down and then flip over the fourth card. Again, the highest card wins the whole pile. The game continues until one person has all the cards.

The game is entirely driven by luck, and it can drag on for twenty or thirty minutes as one player, deck spilling over with forty-something cards, tries to win those last few pesky cards from their opponent.

To stave off the boredom, I started looking up some variants on War. As it turns out, some of these are really fun! Most importantly, they create opportunities for you and your kid to have a little math talk while playing.

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