The Games People Play

Some tidbits about games...

The earliest known example of a game is a complete set of equipment for the Royal Game of Ur, dating to about 3000 BC. The Royal Game of Ur can be thought of as a precursor to Backgammon, and it was played with a precursor to dice. The earliest record of cubical dice is from 700 BC, so we must surmise that the people who played the Royal Game of Ur probably used 4-sided sticks to determine their moves. It's a good thing that cubical dice were invented - otherwise, most cars south of the Mason-Dixon line would sport a set of fuzzy sticks on their rear-view mirrors.

For the next 2,000 years or so, that was about all there was to play. Then one day, some guy in India came up with chess. This was a quantum leap from the Game of Ur, and chess quickly spread throughout Asia Minor. Chess is not a difficult game to learn, but it may be the most difficult of any game to master. The number of possible moves runs into the quintillions, and my feeble mind can't remember all those moves. But I still like to play.

Around the middle of the 15th century, the French, not having sufficient intellect to play chess, invented the standard four-suited deck of cards that we still use today. That led inexorably to the invention of the casino, where you won't find a single chessboard. For the French, this was a simple concept - all you needed to open a casino was a table, a deck of cards, and some cubical dice. I suspect they left it to the people in India to figure out the various odds for their casino games. This is not to say that the French invented the casino, for they did not. An invention like that required more creativity than could be found in France. But they needed a place to drink their wine, and what better place than a felt-covered table, complete with rails to prevent one from falling to the floor.


I recently discovered a new game: KenKen. This is no joke - it is a real game, invented just a few years ago, and can be found in the NY Times and many other dailies. It is similar to Sudoku in that it is played on a grid (as small as 4x4 and as large as 9x9), and that each row and column has no repeating numbers. In a 6x6 game, for example, each row will contain the numbers one through six, as will each column. The difference between KenKen and Sudoku is that there is some math involved with KenKen. What this means in practice is that you have to logically determine the possibilities before you can logically determine the possibilities...a wonderful concept.

Rather than me trying to explain it, follow this link to the KenKen page, where you can print off puzzles and learn the ropes. You can also read Will Shortz' assessment of the game - and if Will Shortz likes it, it is probably worth a look. (He's the guy who edits the NY Times crossword puzzles and who has tempted more than one cruciverbalist to jump out the window.) The game is beautiful in its simplicity, yet devilish in its deceptions. If you can think logically, give it a go.






One of these drawings is logical, the other is not.

Can you tell the difference?