Why won't this 'if' statement run in a while loop without something else also happening in the while loop?

I'm having a problem where an if statement is only running if there is something else happening before it in the while loop.

Here is the code I want to use:

public void load() throws IOException, InterruptedException {
    while (true) {
        if (findGame == true) {
            System.out.println(findGame);
        }
    }
}

That is simplified but it shows my problem. Basically, when findGame == true, the if statement does not run. The reason I don't think the if statement is running is because the variable is not being printed out to the console.

I did some tests and found that the if statement ran with the following code:

public void load() throws IOException, InterruptedException {
    while (true) {
        System.out.println("foo"); // New code added
        if (findGame == true) {
            System.out.println(findGame);
        }
    }
}

My question is why does it work with the above code but not the first one? The only difference between the two is that the one that works has something else added to the while loop.

If it makes a difference, the code I've shown above is running in a separate thread.