THE GAMES HE PLAYS

GERMANY’S BOARD GAMES GURU HAS BUILT A TREASURE TROVE OF 20,000 GAMES

With a treasure trove of over 20,000 board games, including a discontinued Trump property game, Germany’s Tom Werneck has turned a lifelong passion for rolling the dice and passing go into one of the world’s biggest collections.

And if the 79-year-old has learned anything along the way, it’s that winning comes second — and sometimes it’s ok to bend the rules.

Walking past endless rows of games stacked up to the ceiling in a Bavarian basement, Werneck chuckles as he pulls out “Trump: The Game” and points to the gold-lettered tagline on the box, picked up in Trump Tower in the late 1980s.

“It’s not whether you win or lose, but whether you win!”, it reads, above a picture of the future US president.

To Werneck, nothing could be further from the truth.

“Playing is about connecting with people. I want to play with you, look you in the eyes. You’re the real aim of the game. I couldn’t care less whether I win or lose,” he says.

It’s a sentiment that increasingly resonates in today’s digital world, where a desire to turn off our screens and have real-life interactions has fuelled a global board games boom.

The market for table-top games, which includes puzzles and card games, grew six per cent globally in 2017, according to the NPD research group, and the