Doubling Down On UNO

Piled high on the shelf of our hall coat closet are a number of board games: Monopoly, Sorry, Yahtzee, Clue and more.  These are games of chance, each with an element of 'the roll of the dice' or 'the luck of the draw'.  In spite of this component, even the most random game of chance can be affected by the choices each player makes.  In other words, the skill of the player does matter.  This is why people gamble.  They think they are smarter than chance.

Our youngest daughter Mercy is, at seven, not quite up to the complexities of many of our board games, but she adores UNO.  UNO, for the uninitiated, is a classic card game.  One evening this week, her other sisters were occupied with other things, so Mercy asked if I would play a game of UNO.  I had a few minutes to spare and said "O.K., one game".  A single hand of UNO can go on for quite a long time before someone goes out, which is why I agreed to play ONE game.

I Can't Win. 

Part of the reason Mercy likes UNO so much is that she has developed a reputation for winning.  I am sure she is not gifted enough to be consciously calculating the odds of which order of card play offers the highest likelihood of achieving victory.  However, she does have a knack.  She wins far more often than she loses.

I knew this going in.  So, it was not unexpected that I would lose.  And I did.  In very short order.  We didn't even make it through the 'draw' deck once, leaving us with time to play more.  As any self-respecting man who has been so soundly thrashed would do, I challenged her to 'the best two out of three', meaning that one of us had to win two and I hoped it would be me.  Please reference my opening remarks about skill.  Surely I had more skill than a seven-year-old.

Game Two was a repeat of Game One.  I came close to going out once or twice, but again Mercy won.  I was beginning to feel like Megamind in his contests with Metroman: She would win some, I would almost win others.  In desperation, I cried out, "Best three out of five!"  This, of course, meant that I would have to win three in a row, a highly unlikely scenario.  In Game Three, I had a decent hand, played carefully, and lost even more quickly than I had the first two games.   In suspicion I looked at the discard pile.  Then I counted it to confirm.  There had been 14 cards discarded, which meant that as 7 cards are dealt to start the game, my brilliant opponent had never had to draw even one!  All along, Mercy played calmly, with a sweet smile on her face.  She would even apologize when she had to foist a 'draw 4' card on me (see "I Can't Win" above). 

Rather than gracefully accept my defeat, I made a classic mistake.  I doubled down on a  bad investment.  I had already played longer than I should have.  But, in a rather graceless attempt to salvage the remnants of my pride, I stated boldly that there was 'no way' Mercy could win four in a row and I would pay her a dollar if she did.  So, now I was into my UNO investment with both time and money.

You can guess the outcome.  After a slightly longer hand than humiliating Game Three, I was on the brink of winning.  I had one card left and called 'Uno'.  But, my discard, while not the color of Mercy's remaining card, was the same number, and she went out.  My other daughters swear I was rolling around on the floor howling in agony for several minutes afterwards.  I can assure you I was not that undignified.  Finally, I trudged back to my bedroom and returned to pay one quarter for each game Mercy had won.  And she accepted each quarter with the same cheerfulness as she had each victory.

I did learn from this experience.  A couple of nights later, when we played another game of UNO, I stopped after losing the first game.