On an episode of “Seinfeld,” George Costanza is forced to entertain an obnoxious teenage boy who has an immunodeficiency and lives in a plastic bubble. The two are engaged in a game of Trivial Pursuit, and the boy is about to win, so long as he gets a history question right. Costanza begrudgingly draws the final card and reads: “Who invaded Spain in the eighth century?” “That’s a joke,” the kid scoffs. “The Moors.” Costanza looks at the answer and smiles: “Oh no! I’m so sorry, it’s the Moops.” Obviously, it is not the Moops, because there are no Moops. The card has a misprint. But this is George Constanza, so of course he doubles down on the Moops, and we later cut back to him as he’s being choked by the boy’s gloved hands. I bring up this scene not only because it’s one of my favorites from the series, but because it’s related to a dilemma of gameplay I’ve been turning over in my mind: What should you do when an honest mistake cuts in your favor? If, say, a Scrabble opponent’s faulty tally puts you in the lead, or someone accidentally shows you a tile in their mahjong hand, giving you the strategic advantage? Should you correct the record, or run with it to the finish line? It’s easy to feel slighted when a mistake goes against you. When your team is at bat and the ump calls a strike on a pitch that was clearly a ball, it’s a travesty. When it’s the opposing team’s batter … well, what can you do? If my pack of strawberries got scanned twice at the grocery store, you bet I’d bring it up. But if the cashier somehow forgot to scan them? It’s free strawberry day, baby. In tabletop games, the calculus is different. If a Moops situation would put me ahead, I’d have to weigh my desire to win against my ability to look my opponent in the eye, or to sleep at night knowing I had engaged in an act of wanton deceit. Sometimes, the only person I’d deceive is myself: When a friend texted me last Wednesday morning, for instance, to — jokingly — pass along her mother’s frustration about the day’s Wordle solution, I avoided reading the answer but caught sight of the complaint: “It’s not even an English word!” (It is.) Later, as I struggled to solve the puzzle, I wondered: Should I proceed with my usual guessing strategy and risk losing? Or use that ill-gotten hint to go for the most unusual terms I can think of? Your moral mileage may vary, but in general, I lean on the side of cutting yourself the slack, and embracing good fortune. One could argue that this attitude amounts to shameless gameplay girl math, a rationalizing process for dishonesty that tips the scales of justice permanently in your favor. Counterpoint: No, it isn’t. It’s just my sense that happy accidents exist in karmic equilibrium. Given all the things that don’t go your way, you deserve whatever does.
Solve Today’s Capture
Puzzle of the WeekThis week, check out the Saturday, Aug. 29 puzzle by Rafael Musa and Kate Chin Park. In her constructor notes for this puzzle, Park wrote: “Working with Rafa is basically the platonic ideal of crossword construction. I’m grateful that our puzzle collaboration has been such a fun corollary to our IRL friendship (which consists largely of book recommendations and ‘Survivor’).” For more tips and insights into this puzzle, read the Wordplay column.
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