“Everyone inside America’s most flailing destination city has a theory for what’s wrong. Now I have my own.”
games
The World’s Hardest Bluffing Game
“Why are some Iraqis so good at figuring out when a person is lying?”
The Russian Bot Army That Conquered Online Poker
“How a card-playing Siberian AI outsmarted the world’s brightest researchers and raked in millions.”
Gold Treasure Worth a Fortune Was Just Hidden in a Forest. The Hunt Starts Now
“For years, Jason Rohrer put out bizarre, beloved video games. Now, with Project Skydrop, he launches (yes, today) the real-world treasure hunt of his dreams.”
Fear as a Game
“What can the philosophy of games tell us about our odd impulse to scare ourselves?”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending noteworthy reads from Tim Prudente and Stokely Baksh, Rachel Aviv, Abby Tickell, Nick Zarzycki, and Andrea Sachs.
The Creator Of ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Knows Exactly Where It All Went Wrong
“Garfield was at war with his own game and the industry that was erupting around it almost as soon as ‘Magic’ released.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week features pieces from Sabrina Imbler, Natan Last, Lulu Miller and John Megahan, Casey Cep, and David Grimm.
Can Crosswords Be More Inclusive?
“The puzzles spread from the United States across the globe, but the American crossword today doesn’t always reflect the linguistic changes that immigration brings.”
What If the Robots Were Very Nice While They Took Over the World?
“First it was chess and Go. Now AI can beat us at Diplomacy, the most human of board games. The way it wins offers hope that maybe AI will be a delight.”
