I looked at losses as an opportunity to improve. I’ll review the game, find my mistakes, and learn how to avoid them in the future. So when I lost at Crazy 8s I’d study. Just joking! I honestly don’t care about Crazy 8s that much to study my losses. What am I trying to go pro??

I eventually realized that this applied to every game. I’m not going to be a pro chess player. I’m not going to be a pro bowler. I don’t care that much to put the time and effort into studying and training the intricacies of Counter Strike. I’m just trying to have fun! That’s when losing stopped bothering me so much.

Probably not the answer you’re looking for, but weed. I hate losing at anything, and that compounds heavily in matter that I care about. I’ve completely cut NFL from my life starting last year because that’s the only way that I found to not feel like shit after a loss. Not only did it ruin a day or two for me, I was a twat. Prior to weed, I was overtly aggressive. Not to others but my language and inanimate objects. Weed chilled those tendencies, but it didn’t fix post game losses. I’ve had to do a lot of deliberate mental work to stop caring. I think I was raised to be competitive, so breaking those traits has taken years.

This is a worthwhile struggle. Realizing you want to change your perspective is a great start.

If the win is out of reach for me, I at least try and make them earn the rest of their victory. The more you make them have to actually work for it, the more they’ll enjoy the win. I guess I kinda think of it like a D&D game where I’m the DM: now my job is to facilitate the other player(s) having fun.

Either that or I’ll ask questions and try to learn, so I can come back stronger next time.

I am still this way a bit. Really it boils down to perspective.

For me I broke it down like this

1. You get angry about losing because it makes you feel incompetent

2. I am allowed to enjoy things casually, I don’t have to excel. I can excel at things that actually matter and have real world consequences, like work

3. There are a million factors that can feed into a loss; luck being one of them

I mostly just switched away from competitive games (as in, games where you’re playing against other players). It is supposed to be a leisure activity, after all. I found I felt bad if I won (because I made my opponent feel bad) and felt bad if I lost.

There’s also the idea that the best board game experience is where all players had a good time. Paying attention to other players’ needs might help reduce your own attention to your investment in the game.

Two approaches. Mixed success with both.

1. Choose games that don’t make you feel bad. This can mean playing more cooperative games, or it can mean offering to referee or sit out games you know will just piss you off. For me, the chance of winning isn’t appealing enough to outweigh the chance of ruining the game for someone else. It helps to identify what exactly it is about losing that makes you so sour. I have a hard time with games like Cards Against Humanity because the card combinations that are funny to me usually aren’t funny to anyone else because they didn’t go on the ADHD field trip with me to make those connections. It starts to feel like a popularity contest that I’m losing because my brain is wired wrong, and it’s hard not to take that personally.

2. Set different goals in the games you’re playing, and define ‘winning’ for yourself based on those goals. I used to get annoyed every time my friends pulled out settlers of Catan. I would do what made sense to me each turn, but I’d always lose anyway either to random chance or just not having enough RAM in my brain. Even on the rare occasions I won I often wouldn’t have fun with it because I spent so much of the game being frustrated. So I decided the only thing I cared about in the game was getting one of the bonus goals, usually ‘longest road’. That was much easier to focus on, and it took all the pressure off me to win. After a while it became kind of a running joke.

It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t happen in a vacuum either. Sore losers often have anger issues they’re not dealing with (I know I did!) and figuring that stuff out will help in more areas of your life than just board games.

Your mileage may vary.

Good luck!

Two approaches. Mixed success with both.

1. Choose games that don’t make you feel bad. This can mean playing more cooperative games, or it can mean offering to referee or sit out games you know will just piss you off. For me, the chance of winning isn’t appealing enough to outweigh the chance of ruining the game for someone else. It helps to identify what exactly it is about losing that makes you so sour. I have a hard time with games like Cards Against Humanity because the card combinations that are funny to me usually aren’t funny to anyone else because they didn’t go on the ADHD field trip with to make those connections. It starts to feel like a popularity contest that I’m losing because my brain is wired wrong, and it’s hard not to take that personally.

2. Set different goals in the games you’re playing, and define ‘winning’ for yourself based on those goals. I used to get annoyed every time my friends pulled out settlers of Catan. I would do what made sense to me each turn, but I’d always lose anyway either to random chance or just not having enough RAM in my brain. Even on the rare occasions I won I often wouldn’t have fun with it because I spent so much of the game being frustrated. So I decided the only thing I cared about in the game was getting one of the bonus goals, usually ‘longest road’. That was much easier to focus on, and it took all the pressure off me to win. After a while it became kind of a running joke.

It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t happen in a vacuum either. Sore losers often have anger issues they’re not dealing with (I know I did!) and figuring that stuff out will help in more areas of your life than just board games.

Your mileage may vary.

Good luck!

No good advice, but I want to say kudos to you for seeking self improvement!

Reframe your goals. Is the game about winning or is it about having fun with your friends? Almost always the real goal is the latter, but our lizard brains don’t always realize this. Sometimes this may mean you choose to play differently because your goal is to maximize fun rather than win rate. And that way if you do lose you don’t feel bad because you still had a good time.

You winning a board game doesn’t show your worth.

Keep two things at mind:

• If you keep winning, victory will loose meaningless. Achieving a Victory is much more rewarding after a few defeats
• It’s a game, focus on having fun more than winning. You mentioned board games, if you see that you won’t really stand much of a chance of victory, why not try that weird strategy you saw online? My last chess match ended up in a complete laughing room after I tried the intercontinental ballistic queen I saw on youtube and somehow ended up loosing both my towers in the process

Also, take a defeat as a way to improve. If you lost, something made you loose, take it as a challenge to improve it

I just stopped competing. I’m not a good loser or winner haha. I really like cooperative games.

Ask yourself: what can I learn from this?

Try to stop seeing a loss as a loss. Try to see a loss as lessons, instead

You either win or you learn.

If things don’t go your way this time, you have an opportunity to look over what went wrong and what you can fix for next time.

Then come back for round 2.

This works in both serious and casual situations. Even in casual situations, opponents often appreciate a player who can adapt.