I think this article blows past several important points – perhaps unknowingly.<p>1. Sure, tic-tac-toe is a fantastic game for someone who needs to learn the &quot;rewards of thinking ahead and taking the opponent’s strategy into account&quot;. Game enthusiasts (or indeed anyone above the age of 12) are very unlikely to need this lesson.<p>1&gt; However, there is an interesting variant of tic-tac-toe[1] so disregarding the game completely isn&#x27;t fair either.<p>2. People don&#x27;t dislike Monopoly because it has dice. Risk has dice, and is incredibly popular. People dislike Monopoly because <i>it is designed to be a game that is not fun to play for all but one player</i>.<p>2&gt; The game was designed as an anti-capitalist, anti-monopolist lesson.[2] When the rules are set up just right, only one person will be the winner and the other people will spiral into a negative feedback loop and quickly run out of all their money. That&#x27;s the entire premise of the game: if you have a lot of money you can easily get more. Of course a game which is designed to distress 3&#x2F;4 people playing in a session is not going to be very highly rated.<p>That said, I do think there is one popular game that gets very little respect from (at least western) game enthusiasts: go[3]!<p>Probably known in these circles as &quot;the game computers can&#x27;t yet beat top humans in&quot; it&#x27;s an abstract strategy game for two players (like chess) – with incredibly simple rules. You can learn the rules in a few minutes (literally) but it will take you weeks to even start feeling like you know what you are doing, and years before you&#x27;re competent. The strategic and tactical depth is vast, much deeper than any other game I&#x27;ve tried.<p>[1]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mathwithbaddrawings.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;06&#x2F;16&#x2F;ultimate-tic-tac-toe&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mathwithbaddrawings.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;06&#x2F;16&#x2F;ultimate-tic-tac-t...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;History_of_the_board_game_Monopoly" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;History_of_the_board_game_Mono...</a><p>[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Go_(game)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Go_(game)</a>