I Solved Every Board Game

Summary

Mark Rober presents a data-driven attempt to improve at popular games. Over six months, he and a small team collected footage and results from games played with people at an elementary school, beach, senior center, biker bar, and public park. They analyzed hundreds of matches and ran more than one million Battleship simulations, looking for repeatable advantages.

The video’s central idea is that small strategic choices can improve your odds—but many of the techniques are probabilistic, not guaranteed. Mark tests them against members of the public and then challenges his former statistics teacher, Mr. Malloy, in a series of games. Malloy often counters Mark’s strategies, showing that preparation and statistics do not eliminate luck or stronger play.

Strategies and Lessons

Guess Who

• Ask questions that divide the remaining characters as evenly as possible.
• Repeatedly cutting the possibilities in half should identify the character in about 5.5 guesses on average.
• Mark says this strategy, taught to him by Mr. Malloy, won about 96% of his games.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

• Quick challenge: Mark claims that giving an opponent little time to think often leads them to choose scissors, possibly because it is the last option they hear. This is presented as an observed tendency, not a sure thing.
• Best-of series: Track what won the previous round, then choose the option that beats it. Mark says this exploits a tendency for players to switch choices after a loss and can provide a statistical advantage over many rounds.

Coin Toss

Mark demonstrates a wrist-and-arm technique that makes the coin wobble rather than flip normally. To make a called result more likely, he says to start with the opposite face showing. This is a physical manipulation of the toss, not a fair or reliable way to predict a normal coin flip.

Connect Four

• Prioritize the center column: Most possible four-in-a-row lines pass through it.
• Build a “beak” shape: This setup can create two winning threats; blocking one may open the other.
• Look for positions where the opponent cannot block every threat.

Battleship

1. Search in a checkerboard pattern. Since every ship occupies at least two squares, searching alternating squares reduces the number of locations to check.
2. After a hit, check neighboring squares—up, down, left, and right—to find the ship’s direction and sink it.
3. After sinking the two-square ship, expand the spacing to every third square, since the remaining ships are longer.
4. Aim toward the middle of the largest open area. Ships are more likely to fit in larger available regions. Malloy improves on Mark’s approach by targeting high-probability squares within the checkerboard pattern.

The video reports that random guessing plus neighbor checks took about 60 turns on average, Mark’s checkerboard method about 50, and Malloy’s added probability-based targeting about 45.

Tic-Tac-Toe

1. Try to move first and take a corner.
2. Choose a second corner that creates a winning threat.
3. Use the remaining corner to create a fork—two simultaneous threats the opponent cannot block.

The strategy is strongest when the opponent does not take the center. Against a center response, Mark says a win is still possible in some cases, but it is not assured.

Jenga

1. Test blocks and remove ones that slide easily.
2. Retest every turn: shifting the tower redistributes its weight, so a previously stuck block may become loose.
3. If a block is stuck, a quick tap or flick may be safer than a slow push. The explanation is that overcoming static friction takes more force than keeping a block moving against kinetic friction.
4. Count the remaining safe moves and try to leave an even number so that the opponent faces the last unsafe move.

The video also notes that Jenga blocks can vary in height, contributing to how tightly or loosely they fit.

Monopoly

1. Follow the official rules: Unpurchased properties are auctioned immediately, and Free Parking does not award a jackpot.
2. Buy properties you land on to acquire assets and prevent opponents from completing sets.
3. Build three houses quickly: This is presented as a strong return on investment and can also reduce the bank’s supply of houses, limiting opponents’ development.
4. Target the orange properties: They are near Jail, a commonly landed-on square, and are relatively affordable to develop.
5. Use Jail differently depending on the game: Get out early to keep acquiring properties; later, staying in can protect you from rent while still allowing you to collect rent.
6. Trade strategically: Monopoly depends on property deals, so antagonizing everyone can make it harder to complete a monopoly.

Squirrel Dash and Hungry Hippos

• Mark wins Squirrel Dash against Malloy but does not reveal a general strategy, saying players will need to work it out themselves.
• The final Hungry Hippos tiebreaker comes down to button-mashing and chance rather than a demonstrated strategic method. Malloy wins.

Overall Takeaway

The video uses experimentation, observation, and statistical reasoning to uncover useful patterns in familiar games. Its advice can improve a player’s odds, but it does not make every game winnable: opponents can adapt, and chance still matters. The final contest also serves as a tribute to Malloy, whose teaching helped inspire Mark’s interest in applying statistics to games.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Mark Rober — host, narrator, and player.
• Mr. Malloy — Mark’s former high-school statistics teacher, opponent, and source of the original Guess Who strategy.
• Unnamed research team members — collected game data at several locations; Connor is specifically credited in the video with measuring 540 Jenga blocks.
• Unnamed park participants and other players — took part in Mark’s public challenges and the team’s data collection.
• The team’s collected match footage and results — used to identify patterns across hundreds of games.
• Battleship computer simulations — used to compare search strategies across more than one million games.
• Mark’s earlier 2011 coin-toss video — cited as the origin of his coin-toss technique.