Who am I?
My name is Vasilij. I’m in my 30’s and I live in a small European country, named Slovenia.
I’ve been playing board games (and other games) since I was a kid. I still remember playing pachisi with my family at a very young age. In elementary school, I got into chess and all sorts of card games.
Later on, other games followed. Games like Monopoly, Catan, Scrabble, Risk, before I delved deeper into the world of board gaming with Victory Conditions.
I was in college at the time the poker boom hit us in the mid-2000s and I immediately became hooked. I started playing for penny stakes with friends but quickly moved online. I deposited 50$ and, as they say, the rest is history – a couple of years later I was earning a steady profit playing no-limit 100 and 200.
Eventually, I stopped playing for various personal and professional reasons (games dried up and I was onto other things in life) and board games were again just a hobby for me instead of work.
I am a very competitive person. When I play a game, not only do I like to have fun, but I also want to win. Whenever I and my friends discover a new game, I am the first to go online to look for strategy guides and studies. Or study them and develop my own.
I’m also a very analytical person. It was at online poker that I really got to the next level by studying the game. I was studying books and articles about strategy, psychology, game theory, probability theory, and mathematics. All for one goal – to maximize my every decision and yield maximum profit in the long run.
It was with this knowledge that I realized that this decision-making process applies to all games – even in a simple game you have choices. And wherever you have a choice, there will always be better choices and worse choices.
It is true that in a simple game dominated by chance, these choices don’t matter that much, but in a more complex game, it really comes down to who makes better choices – therefore is a better player. The more choices (or strategies) there are available in a game, the more the good player can shine.
This is the mentality I approach modern board games with. It’s all about decisions. How much does it matter what I do here or is it going to be all ruined by a random card draw? I love games where decisions matter and allow me to win on the skill, rather than luck.
Looking at my personal side, I am a father with a lot of hobbies. Besides board games, I am a huge sports fan (football, which I actively play, formula 1, and ski jumping are my favorites, but I follow many more), a gamer (all sorts of PC games, special focus on sim racing) and a long-time moderator at hattrick.org – I have been playing this text-based online football manager for well over a decade (yes, you have read that correctly) now.
Why Victory Conditions?
Mid-2019 was a turning point in my life. The second of my children has been born with a slight disability and it was time to re-evaluate which things really matter in life.
I’ve decided to quit my well-paid, but highly stressful and demanding job. I was working on projects all over Europe and spending a lot of time away from my family.
Quitting the job, I decided to take some time off, concentrating on my family, while I looked for a less stressful job locally. Having a lot of extra time, I started to explore work-from-home options and eventually decided I’d build my own website and see where this takes me.
I went back to my old love, board gaming when deciding on a theme. Victoryconditions.com is a site that follows my journey through the board gaming world. I write about games I play, discover new games, help you find games you will like, discuss strategy, and so on.
Where to start?
If you’re new to the site, here are some links that are a good starting point for navigating around Victory Conditions.
- I’ve got several articles on Settlers of Catan, the board game that opened the gates to (euro) board gaming for me.
- Another large category is Scythe, a true gem of a game. It’s an engine-building game set in post-war diesel-punk Europe.
- Mage Knight is probably the game, I dissected the most, right down to action cards and enemy tokens. It’s arguably the best heavy-solo board game available, so make sure to check it out.
- One last thing I want to mention and that I really enjoy doing is exploring the world of board gaming and discovering new games. I compile my findings into Top Games lists. These are great if you’re searching for the best games on a certain theme.
All the best,
Vasilij,
victoryconditions.com
So much of succeeding at playing games comes down to understanding human psychology: humans are intensely emotional creatures and rarely make completely rational decisions. I read an article recently about this: that this is how the big chess websites can tell whether people are cheating by putting the moves into chess-playing software: computers don’t attach emotional value to their past moves while humans become invested in their own strategy and struggle to correct their mistakes and change tactics mid-game.
Yes, this is also something one can exploit in poker for direct financial benefit (someting i was also quite good at), but also in other board games. In Risk, for, example, I always knew how to convince a player to attack someone else and my armies could grow unobstructed. 🙂
This is what we call pure passion for online business. Turning your passion into an online business is quite easier than people thought and you are a good example of that.
I can see that you are very good at games. It is in you already from start. I can also see the burning desire to help others who want to play very good like you.
I am going to keep an eye on your website often now to see what new article about gaming you may be writing next.
I am a big fan of gaming myself even though I can even move a pawn on a chase board not to mention blackjack.
Thanks for sharing such a powerful skill.
Thank you for encouraging words, Richard.