Strategic Board Games

The Most Popular Strategic Board Game: Chess

Chess is as old as modern civilization itself, invented sometime during Persia rule. This strategic board game is played on an eight by eight checkered board. There are eight rows (or ranks) and eight columns (or files). You have 16 pieces: eight pawns, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, one Queen, and one King. The pawns only move forward until they reach the final rank, which they can turn into anything the player wants, except a pawn or king. The rooks move vertically and horizontally and the bishops move diagonally. The knight is a special piece and is allowed to move in the shape of an ‘L’ the equivalent of three squares. The Queen combines the powers of the rook and bishop, moving either diagonally, horizontally, or vertically. The King is a slimmed down version of the Queen and can move only one square in any direction. When the King is captured, you have been checkmated and the game is over.

The number of possible moves is nearly limitless. There are over 1,000 openings each with hundreds of combinations. While openings may take similar paths, how you proceed through the middle to end-game is determined by your playing style. You could be an attacker or a defender, or you could relay on positional play or you might try to simplify the board as quick as possible. Whichever your style, casual games usually last around 40-50 moves while tournament games can take anywhere from 50 to over 100 moves.

Checkers

Checkers, or Draughts as it’s known in England, is played on the same type of board as Chess. There are two colors and they are set up on alternating squares, leaving three rows open between the two colors. The dark colors move first and pieces travel one square diagonally left or right. One misconception about checkers is when to jump. Casual and family players usually leave the option of jumping and “capturing” a piece up to the player. If you want to play the correct way, then you must always jump when put in that position since that is where most of the strategy comes in.

When pieces reach the last row opposite their original, they are “kinged” and a same-colored piece is placed on top. The new kinged piece can now move one square in anydirection. The game is over when all the pieces of one color are captured or a player cannot move any pieces.

Reversi or Othello

Reversi is played on an eight by eight board with coin-like pieces which are dark on one side and light on the other. Pieces are usually black and white. The object of the game is to make all the pieces your color. To begin, four pieces are placed in the center four squares: alternating two for black and two for white. The darker player goes first.

The player places a piece so they have the same color at each end of a line. Any of the opponent's pieces in a line that are between the first player's pieces gets flipped, or captured. When a player can’t make a move, the turn goes back to the other player. When all the colors are one or when neither player can make a move, the game is over.

An effective strategy is to take command of the corners since a piece can’t be played on both sides, thereby causing a flip. Also, hemming yourself into the sides is a good way to take control of the board. Dominating the corners too early could be detrimental. If you are just starting out with Reversi, stick with keeping control of the middle and the squares surrounding the middle.

Go

Go, originated in China and has many names across the Asian seaboard. The Koreans call it Gi or Baduk, the Chinese call it Weiqi. Traditional Chinese players call the game Igo. The game is played on the intersecting lines of a 19 by 19 squared board. Pieces are captured when there is no open adjacent space next to your pieces. This is the result of being surrounded by the opposite color. If this happens, all the surrounded stones are removed (basically meaning all the same colored stones that are connected are really one stone). A player passes when he or she cannot increase his territory or capture any opponent pieces. The score is calculated by the number of empty intersection points between a players pieces plus how many they have captured. As with most scoring games, the player with the higher score wins.

Brain Food

The above strategic board games are guaranteed to give you a challenge. If you are having a hard time finding a human opponent, you can find many computer games with varying difficulties that can keep you on your toes. There are quite a few sites available that can pair you up with opponents across the world. Of course there is nothing better than sitting across the board from a live person reading his body movements, determining what his eyes are looking at, or figuring out what he is thinking.