💬 Family game night gets way too serious because of my younger cousin

Every Saturday at my uncle's place we play a board game. It starts as a way to pass the evening. Within 20 minutes my cousin Adnan has gone quiet and the rest of us have started to worry. He's 19. He reads the rulebook before we arrive and he keeps a small notebook in his pocket. Nobody asked him to. It's just there, and he writes things down when somebody makes a bad move. Last week I was winning, which never happens. I had 3 hotels and a very smug face. Adnan looked at me for a long moment and said, you're not going to win this. Nobody had told him that. Then everyone else joined in. My aunt sold him a street at half price just to help him catch me. My uncle, who's 60 and normally asleep by 9, was shouting numbers across the board. I lost by 2 turns. I was furious for about a minute and then I started laughing. Adnan shook my hand very formally and said, good game. His hands were shaking a bit. He walked to the kitchen and I heard him whisper, yes, to the fridge. My aunt says she's never seen him that happy, and he's never won anything before. We've agreed the notebook is staying. I think the rest of us now carry our own tiny worries. I'm studying the rules this week. If I'm the next target, I want to be ready. Saturday is at 7. Come early if you want a good chair and a loud argument. Adnan has already asked my uncle if we can add a second game on Sundays.

We banned carrom after a Diwali a few years back. My uncle accused my aunt of cheating on the last coin. Silence at the table for about 10 minutes. Then my grandmother quietly took the board away. It's still hidden in her cupboard and nobody asks about it. Adnan shaking hands and saying good game is far kinder than anything we managed.

Our house went the other way. We stopped board games because the same person kept winning. Now it's cards, with 2 rupee coins instead of notes, and nobody can take it seriously. Adnan with a notebook sounds like my brother in law, who prints out rules from the internet.

My cousin studies Monopoly strategy the week before we visit family, which tells you everything about how seriously our games get taken. Last Diwali my aunt flipped the board when she landed on a hotel three times in a row, and nobody even blinked because that is just how our nights go now. We still play every year anyway, arguments and all.