Gambling Problems

I spent a recent column trying to take a different view of what it is that unites us all under the banner of "Ameritrash". But there's one particular unifying factor that I forgot, and while it wasn't really important to the argument I was trying to make there, it's interesting in its own right because it marks a near-universal point of agreement amongst AT fans. The point in question is simply that games need to have a good, solid dose of random to make them interesting. It's something we nearly all agree on - whilst some of us might have more time for abstracts or low-random euros than others, and whilst our tolerance of the degree to which random factors eventually influence the winner of a game may differ, we're united in believing that random factors lend too much fun, excitement, drama and dynamism to a game to be squeezed out in the search for some mythical perfectly balanced game.