Paper: "Analysis of Mechanics in Jenga"

I've been to a couple parties recently with giant Jenga games. Here's a paper about the mechanics of removing Jenga pieces [pdf].

"Playing Jenga well requires players to operate at several different strategic levels, ranging from strategies to extract individual blocks to choosing “easy” blocks as well as choosing blocks to leave other players with poor options. Research has been done looking into tower stability and counting scenario strategies involved in Jenga, but this paper focuses on the local strategies of removing individual blocks."

Jenga is like musical chairs in that someone is inevitably going to lose. With these types of games, the important aspect of winning that no one talks about is that the game is won or lost when you decide to "sit down" at the table.