One of my friends actively warns me against challenging her to a board game. "You wouldn't like me when I'm competitive," she says, her skin turning green as she rips through her shirt and becomes the Incredible Sulk — a sore loser, that is. While I have not necessarily seen the best friendships of my generation destroyed by competitive gameplay, I have felt firsthand the toll it can take: One of the more serious tiffs that my partner and I had early in our relationship happened over a game of Boggle. It was a kind of meta fight, in that we were arguing over which one of us was the more competitive one. I don't remember who won, which means that I won by not caring enough to recall the details. This competitive itch doesn't have to involve games in the traditional sense. I know of a friendship that ended permanently because of a competition over finding the best hotel deal for a group trip. Another blowup was the result of a shared crush. Even when I succeed at something on my own merits, I feel the slime of one-upmanship in my wake. If it be not now, yet it will come — the pettiness is all. I share these cautionary tales in part because New York Times Games has just released a Friends tab, which allows solvers to establish leaderboards with their friends for Wordle, the Mini, Connections and Spelling Bee. Your daily solving stats will appear whether or not you opt to face off against your group chat, so as long as you've made a leaderboard, you can never be truly free from the possibility of winning. I tapped into the tab just this morning and noticed that a friend of mine had solved the Mini in 22 seconds. Dare I try to beat her time? I knew that if I couldn't, the humiliation of seeing myself ranked second would haunt me until the end of the day. I decided to solve the regular Crossword instead. Am I so competitive that I can't entertain the possibility of losing? Or am I so uncompetitive that I can walk away from a scoreboard altogether? Don't answer that — I'm not sure which one I'd prefer. I'll leave you to decide on your relationship to the Friends tab. Just be kind to yourself, and remember: It's only a game. A game that you can win. That you must win, lest your skin turn green. On last week's newsletter: I was thrilled to receive so many thoughtful interpretations of "difficulty." Many of you shared definitions of the term as it relates to crosswords, which included "words with seldom-used letters," "archaic spellings or variations," language "too connected to a specific age group" and "anything past Tuesday." Other general observations: Difficulty requires cleverness. You can measure a puzzle's difficulty by comparing completion times against a daily average. It's easy if you know the answer, and difficult if you don't (a Mad Hatter-esque declaration if I've ever heard one). One reader drew a graph that captures the general idea beautifully:
Brain Tickler 🤔See the answer in the P.S.
Puzzle of the WeekEach week we highlight a special puzzle that we published recently. This week, check out the Mini from Saturday, May 17. The Saturday Mini is always a little bigger, but this one is of an especially funky size.
How are we doing? Thanks for playing! Subscribe to New York Times Games. If you like this newsletter, you can tell your friends to sign up here. P.S. The answer to the Brain Tickler is letters.
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