I grew to like Gardner's writings somewhat now. They however, indirectly, had almost devastating effect on my earlier life, promoting sort of mathematics I never could do.

There is "bag of tricks" culture of mathematics (http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/2cultures.pdf) where one often stands no chance against a "tricky" problem without prior acquaintance with "tricky" sort of shortcut principle. I was always too slow and never grokked or scored this sort of mathematics. I barely found anything profound or beautiful in Gardner's SciAm columns. They were scary like black magic more than they were interesting. My teachers all from this school just bashed me and didn't told me there is richer structured, theoretical and constructive side to mathematics. The same year I qualified to the International Physics Olympiad I got non passing grade in mathematics, at which point I dropped out of HS, went to do what unexpectedly turned out mathematical physics and now I'm for a degree in pure mathematics, several tantalizing years later than if my teachers were not so enchanted by Gardner's tricks.