Teeko is a wonderful game, although today is almost forgotten. Too bad. Not only the game is interesting, but also its creator – John Scarne. He was a prominent expert on gaming, gambling, and card manipulations. He knew both the techniques of cheating on mathematical issues related to games. He was earning money as a magician, but because of his extensive knowledge we can call him “The Wizard of Games”.
Continue reading “Teeko – a game and a masterpiece of John Scarne, the Wizard of Games”
German word “belagerung” means “siege” and this is also a name of a quite interesting “war game” from 19th century. To be precise, this game is interesting variant of Halatafl, very old game mentioned few times on this blog.
Earlier I have described basic variants of Draughts and by the way I explained that draughts (checkers) is not one game. Draughts is a huge family of games with some common rules. In most draughts games pieces move diagonally, but there are also variations where pieces move in straight lines (orthogonally). Today I would like to show you three variants of orthogonal draughts – Turkish Draughts, Croda and Dameo.
Continue reading “Orthogonal draughts on 8×8 board – Turkish Draughts, Croda and Dameo”
Game of othello becomes increasingly popular, but many people know this game as “reversi“. Even in some Wikipedia posts you can read that reversi is another name of othello. In fact, they are two different games. Both played on 8×8 board with two-color discs, but details are different.
I would like to bring you closer to the rules of these two games. I would like you to perceive the differences.
Continue reading “Reversi and othello – two different games. Do you know their different rules?”
I already wrote on Halatafl game and its variants such as Freys-tafl. Generally, these are “fox games”, where one player plays with the “fox”, and another player plays with “geese”. Aim of the game is different for each player.
In some Halatafl variants there is only one “fox”, and the aim of the game is to kill the Geese (for Fox) or to block Fox (for Geese). Today I want to show you three slightly different variants in which there are two Foxes, and players fight for a territory.
Continue reading “Fortresslike games – more Halatafl variants”
Most board games have fairly simple boards. Usually with square fields arranged in simple shape or a set of intersecting lines. Rarely boards have circular shape or fields arranged in interesting pattern.
There are of course a few games that have fancy boards. I already described Russian game Spider and flies, which is an interesting example. Now I’m going to describe another Russian game with fantastic board – Vsadniki.
Sometimes you want to play with family or friends, but you don’t want to get tired mentally. You rather want to relax, talk with someone etc. In such situations games with random element are fine. Some of these games are very popular like Pachisi or Ludo. Unfortunately, Ludo is quite simple … too simple. Perhaps you’d like to play some game similar to Ludo, but you want this game to be a bit more challenging, more surprising or demanding more strategic thinking?
If you are looking for such game I propose Malefiz.
I love Draughts (Checkers), but in the past had one problem with them.
During my pedagody studies I had internship at the community day center. There was a draughts set, and of course kids were playing. Unfortunately it was a source of many conflicts, because kids quarreled about rules. Can you capture backwards? How do you move King? What to do when someone forgets about capture? When piece is crowned? And so on and so forth. Kids’ doubts were partly fueled by the Internet. There were always someone who “played on the internet this way” and he was sure about the “only right” rules.
Seega is a game from Egypt, at least in the form known today. It was popular in the 19th century for sure, but it could be known as early as in 18th century. Of course, it did not came out of nowhere. It shows similarity to much older games like Greek Petteia or Roman Latrunculorum. Egypt was part of the Roman Empire so this origin would be natural. On the other hand, I once read that Greek petteia could originate from Seega or from one of Seega’s older ancestors.
On Bona Ludo I already wrote about Halatafl or “fox and geese” – a game from Iceland. I mentioned this is old game so there are many variants. Now the time has come to describe these variants and game of Freys-tafl is good starting point.
