I come from a game-playing family, so playing board games with our boys is kind of a rite of passage. Over a year ago, my brother-in-law introduced us to a number of ‘European’ board games. They don’t involve dice, so luck is eliminated for the sake of strategy. Clearly these games are outside the canon of Parker Brothers (in fact, any game with a pair of dice is mockingly referred to as an ‘Ameri-trash Game’). We personally own one such game, but the rest are ‘Ameri-trash’ classics. Our youngest son loves to play games and will occasionally coax us into playing ‘Sorry’, ‘Life’ or (Heaven forbid) ‘Monopoly’. I realize they’re all good at teaching young minds good sportsmanship and strategy, but it’s like choosing to play checkers when you’d rather be playing chess.