This weekend we took the daughter and her cousins to Chuck E. Cheese. The game floor is (as most parents know) split pretty evenly between entertaining video games and ticket gimmick games.

After buying some overpriced pizza and the prized tokens, the daughter hit the floor. After realizing that convincing her that video games provided the best value (with all games 1 token rule), I turned my attention to the ticket traps.

As I walked around the floor, it seemed that everywhere I turned kids were racking up. I would take a hand full of tokens and fair lousy results on one machine and then try another, but I wound up with 25 tickets.

Then, I watched my nephew. He picked one machine and fed token after token in the machine, not distracted by any other machine on the floor. Roaring sirens and flashing lights did not distract him. He carefully and consistently repeated his action 16 times and won 350 tickets. He didn’t quit after 8 tries because he knew that he had to hone his skill at that game and push through the dip. He became the best in the world at the one machine and “quit” all of the others. Nice work Sam.