The hardest games to master


Thousands of games are released each year, which means that anyone interested in games has a virtually endless list of options at their disposal to try. Still, while there’s a fascination with the latest titles, some of the most popular games are the ones that have been around since well before video games. Those games, which we’ll outline below, remain popular for a number of reasons, but perhaps the most influential factor is that they’re so difficult to master. If you’re looking for games that are accessible, widely played, and offer a continuous challenge, then give one of the following games a try. 

Chess

Despite being more than 1,500 years old, Chess remains highly popular. In fact, in terms of sheer number of players, there has never been more chess players than there are today. The best chess players enjoy rockstar-esque status, it’s played all over the world, and it’s accessible — you can play online or pick up a cheap chess set, and be playing pretty quickly.

While chess can be fun to play, we have bad news for anyone with ambitions to become the best player in the world: it is probably not going to happen. You might think that you’ve got a good grip on the game, but one bad move can, if you’re playing against someone even half decent, result in defeat. It’s a deeply unforgiving game, and so the only way to master it is to essentially become a human who doesn’t make mistakes. 

Poker

Poker is younger than chess — it’s around two hundred years old — but it enjoys a similar reputation as being “a thinking person’s game”. And the reasons for that are similar to those for chess. While learning how to play poker is straightforward in a matter of hours, becoming a great player requires significant time and effort. The best poker players in the world spend years studying the game, and even they would admit that they’re far from mastering the game. Newcomers can become good — or even great — players in a matter of months if they study hard enough, but becoming an expert takes a lifetime, and even that might not be enough since the game is always evolving. 

Bridge

Bridge is perhaps an underrated game. Once you know what you’re doing, the game is a lot of fun, especially since it’s a highly social game. Alas, getting to the point where you know what you’re doing takes much more time than most people are willing to give. While you can get a broad understanding of the game and its objectives pretty quickly, reaching the point where you can actually play a game (or, at least, play without asking a million questions about what’s going on) can take weeks. 

You’re not necessarily out of the woods once you reach that stage, either. Bridge players are highly committed, which means that real-world games can be of an extremely high standard. If you’re planning to learn how to play, we recommend playing against a computer for a while until you fully understand what you’re doing. 

Go

Go, like chess, has a long history. While historians aren’t quite sure when exactly it was invented, it’s generally believed to be somewhere between 2,500 – 4000 years old. As with chess, its enduring popularity is down, in part, to the challenge that it presents to players.

Go’s relatively straightforward rules can draw players into a false sense of security. You can think that you’re playing an easy game, but once you’re in the middle of it, you’ll realize that things can quickly become complicated. Throw in the fact that, unlike other games, you often don’t know whether a move was good or bad until much later in the game, and you have a game that is pretty headache-inducing. You’ll have a better sense of the game once you’ve gone through the steep learning curve, but mastering the game? Forget it. 

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