‘On the outskirts of Baltimore there exists a venue that embraces the intense (and expensive) flattery one might expect to receive in a Japanese maid cafe. ‘Take a Win’ is a boardgame café where customers are invited to sit down with a stranger for a long afternoon of being naturally better at an arbitrary, if not enjoyable, activity. Its employees are trained to lose and they’re trained to lose in a variety of ways depending upon the package you select and the money you’re willing to put down.
The standard package offers an easy win and an amicable opponent. A little extra pays for a decisive win against a sore loser. A little more than that, and the loser is so sore they might sweep the pieces off the table or otherwise make a physical scene while you, the victor, gloat. There are short packages for short games and long packages for those six-hour marathons. There are serialized packages for trading card players who like to lose a game here and there for the sake of realism, but want to dominate overall. Once a month, ‘Take a Win’ hosts a tournament, auctioning off the winner ranks. It regularly sells out, and this is why:
People like when the expected occurs. More than that, people are lonely and unsure of their abilities. More than all of that, even, people who indulge in games are generally more open to the experience of pretending and pretending is exactly what is necessary for a game at ‘Take a Win’ to be satisfying.’
I’m pretty bad at board games. Bad at every part. Like, maintaining an understanding of the rules. Like rolling the dice in such a way that they don’t fall off the table and clatter across the floor. The employee who takes me under his wing starts to sweat just twenty minutes in.
Losing against me is going to take everything he’s got.
-traveler
