Teach your kids bridge, not poker
Two player games do have an advantage as you only need two of you. Finding other children to play with is a huge advantage too and lots of schools have chess clubs, so I understand it's popularity. It's hard if you are much better at a game than your children. Magic The Gathering works well because they can genuinely beat us, but you need a keen player as a parent really.<p>There is also the age issue. I think Go is a more interesting game than chess but the scoring is a little hard to teach and it hasn't captured my children's interest as much as chess. Backgammon is interesting - been wondering about teaching it to my children as a counterpoint to chess. Not sure if mine (9 and 11) are quite ready for all the bidding conventions in bridge but working up to it with whist. Poker is very educational I think - I learned lots from playing it - but not really sure whether it would work as a family game.