I was just curious if people are passionate about any ancient, traditional real-life games (whether played digitally or physically, I don't care).
Myself, I mostly only love chess, and I play / practice chess everyday. It think it's absolutely the best game ever, in the Western world.
And I think that's actually pretty much undisputed, but I've heard that Asian tradition has possibly 2 or 3 games that are on-the-level with Western
chess. "Go" is one such example, and "Chinese Chess" is another, I've been told.
Can anyone vouch for such games, and are there any other games that you'd consider on the level with Western chess?
I've never actually played it but it sticks in my memory because it seems to have a good mix of strategy and luck. You sound like an established chess
player, do you find it to be more of a memory game than competitively challenging?
My experience with decent chess players always left the impression it was about memory, the game lost magic for me when I figured that out.
Checkers, the little sibling of chess for 1 on 1s. The board I have is from the 50s or so. Risk, for bigger groups. I own the classical edition with
the shaped wood bricks instead of the plastic soldiers.
And for the kids, "ludo", or like we call it "Human! Don't get angry!". Because it can make you angry...
Yahtzee is satisfying my counting OCD very nice too.
D&D for me. For me, no other game made me think about playing a game, when I wasn't playing it. You can be anything and do anything. If you enjoy just
a little bit of fantasy and imagination, then you MUST give it a try.
I've never actually played it but it sticks in my memory because it seems to have a good mix of strategy and luck. You sound like an established chess
player, do you find it to be more of a memory game than competitively challenging?
My experience with decent chess players always left the impression it was about memory, the game lost magic for me when I figured that out.
^Interesting questions in the quoted post.
Well first, I love chess, but I'm not really "established" in the sense of competitive play, nor was it really ever my goal to be competitive about
it, really.
I think originally I was drawn to the beauty, and the mystery, of the chessboard (we had a small standing table, with a marble chessboard inlaid).
But it turned out that my family really didn't play, and so when I was younger, I mostly never had a chance to play with anyone. I would try with my
family once in a great while, but they really didn't get into it.
Later, in my 20's, I gained one good friend that I play chess with, when we can get together (during the past nearly 20 years, we're middle-aged now).
Ironically I've met a 2nd guy who plays chess, but he really is about collecting board games in general, so I don't think he particularly loves chess,
and really, I don't think he loves or respects anything at all, lol. So that was a disappointing failed friendship, haha, and so I really have just
my one old friend to play chess with.
However, I've also spent time playing chess with computers for a few years now. I used to play people online (chess.com) for a few years. To be
clear my ranking was never anything notable, lol, so I'm really just about the love of the game.
Anyway I did that a few years, some live matches against people around the world (which I really enjoyed that geographical aspect of it). Also I'd
run several turn-based matches against various people, so each match would span days or weeks, and we could just respond at our leisure.
Eventually I stopped online chess, and the last several years I've been mostly just playing / practicing chess with my Mac itself (Apple desktop),
because macOS includes chess, nicely built-in. (Windows doesn't; I've checked, lol).
So that's most of my chess playing, the last recent years: Apple Chess on the hardest difficulty, so I can practice playing against AI that's entirely
smarter than me, lol.
Besides just straight playing chess on my Mac, there are also hints, to see what my Mac thinks are the best moves, and then I can try to see what the
Mac is thinking behind its suggestions (as a way of just practicing and improving my own vision and gameplay, hopefully).
.........
But to answer your question: I don't think chess is necessarily based on memory, very much... I think it's mainly based on clear VISION of the
chessboard, PLUS our ability of imagination, of the possible future moves.
So it's basically a deep meditation, and the whole chessboard is the meditation aid (like how the Tibetan Buddhists create beautiful crazy mandalas to
stare at for meditation).
Chess meditation is 2 different meditations at the same time. 1. is the ability to clearly perceive the chessboard. 2. is the ability to ALSO engage
our imagination, and overlay our imagination, onto the board's clear perception.
I think it's profound because usually our mind is really one or the other, perceiving things, OR getting lost in our imagination.
Chess combines and harmonizes these 2 different functions of our mind, in my opinion.
I love Yahtzee. But I grew up in a house with a total of ten children over time, so the more people that could play a game the better suited the game
was for the group.
I also like Backgammon, Rummikub, and Cribbage. I dabbled a bit in Bridge, and a few other card games, but I don't think it matters much, I like
games. Board games, word games, math games, any type of game.
originally posted by: TheAlleghenyGentleman
There is only one greatest game and it is not chess
It is GO. The greatest of all board games
Thank you. I'm really not familiar myself, except I've heard people express your same sentiment. So I will put some time into this, at some point.
(By the way, to be clear, I only claimed chess as the greatest game in the Western world. I'm completely open-minded that Go and maybe other Asian
games, are possibly on the level, or even better.)
edit on 9-11-2021 by JamesChessman because: (no reason given)
My mom told me this game was the mother of all gambling and forbade me to play it, which of course made me want to play it more! I was pretty good at
it too.
originally posted by: Tekaran
D&D for me. For me, no other game made me think about playing a game, when I wasn't playing it. You can be anything and do anything. If you enjoy just
a little bit of fantasy and imagination, then you MUST give it a try.