Choose a Game Where All Players Have Equal Advantages

You first need to choose a game to play. You probably already have a game in mind, and it might not have occurred to you to try to win at other games. Different games require different skills, and it is not always clear to the beginner or even the intermediate which skills a particular game really demands. It’s best, of course, to play a game you are well suited to play.

I recommend a game that allows all players to start with equal materials and advantages. For example, a fighting game allows players to start with different characters, but all players are free to choose any character they like before the match begins. Magic: The Gathering is a card game that allows players to bring different decks to a tournament, but assuming all players have equal access to all cards beforehand (which you must assume at the tournament level of play), then anyone could have brought any deck. But games based on “leveling up” a character such as many massively multiplayer games allow one player to have material advantage at the beginning of a “match” merely because he put in more time than the other player. Seek out games that do not artificially stack the deck, but instead reward only the player-skill that one takes into a game.