The Player of Games (Ian Banks) is my favourite book of all time and I've never found something that quite scratched that itch since. I suffered through Consider Phlebus in order to read it, and then tried Use of Weapons, which I couldn't finish.
I read Enders game and it's sequel, loved them too.
Ready Player one and two were fun and I enjoyed them even if they weren't the best written.
Tchaikovsky has written some of my current favourites (shards of earth and children of time series).
I tried Dune, wasn't my thing.
The Glass bead game was too hard for me
Other reads I've done but werent quite in the right vein include books by Becky Chambers and Asimov, I read Hyperion and enjoyed that too.
Tl;dr
Love games and a protagonist who is really really good at them – this is the big part of the request!
Love space and sci-fi, don't mind fantasy
Thank you in advance!
by PlusVE