Games

Dogs and Jackals

This time let me introduce you to a game whose name and rules have also been forgotten among the mists of the past. It is known as the game of "Dogs and Jackals." We know of it by way of a famous boardgame found in an Egyptian tomb. It belongs to a family of games named "game of the thirty points" or "game of the fifty eight holes".

Hnefatafl

Hnefatafl or "King's Table"  was known in Scandinavia before 400 A. D. and was carried by the Vikings to Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Britain, Wales and as far east as the Ukraine. The Saxons had their own variant, derived from a common Germanic Tafl game, which was apparently the only board game known to them prior to the introduction of Chess.

All pieces move in the same way, like modern rooks at Chess. That is, on his turn, a player may slide a single piece of his color any number of squares in either orthogonal direction (up-down or left-right, no diagonal moves) as long as it doesn't jump over another piece of either color. The Throne and the four corner squares are off-limits to all pieces except the King. With the smaller board variants, pieces of either color may pass over the Throne; with the larger board variants, only the King may do so.

The White player is trying to have his King escape his assailants by reaching a corner square. If the White player moves so that his King ends up with a clear path to any of the four corner squares, he must announce that he has an escape route open. The Lapps use the word Raichi ("Check") to announce a single route and Tuichi ("Checkmate") to announce a double route. On his next turn, if he can still do so, the King may be moved to a corner square and escape. White then wins.

If the Black player inadvertently opens an escape route for the King, the White player may take advantage of it immediately!

If the moved piece ends up sandwiching an opposing piece between itself and another piece of the moving color or a corner square, the sandwiched piece is removed from the board. This is called custodial capture. It is possible to capture several pieces in a single move.

The King must be sandwiched along both axes to be captured. The Throne, corners and edges count as Black pieces for purposes of sandwiching the King, so Black needs only three pieces to capture the King on the edge of the board or if he is right beside his Throne, two if the King is right beside a corner square. When the King is in danger of being captured on Black's next move, he must announce "Watch your King" to the White player (this is reminiscent of Chess' prohibition against moving one's King into check). Black wins by capturing the King. The King can also be captured if he and no more than one defender are surrounded on all sides and incapable of moving.

The winner is the White player if he manages to reach a corner square with his King, the Black player if he manages to capture the King. Because the game is uneven, it is good etiquette to play two games, switching sides. Each player keeps track of how many pieces he lost or took from his opponent and this score is used to determine the ultimate winner.

Indigenous Traditional Games

The geography of Australia, the weather, and the nature of the societies that existed here, have ensured an important place for sport. Traditional Aboriginal societies had a rich diversity of games and pastimes.

There is very little left of the traditional games, even in isolated areas where some degree of traditional lifestyle may still exist. These games and sports are worth preserving and efforts need to be made to encourage people to play and understand them.

Traditional games provide the opportunity to learn about, appreciate and experience aspects of Aboriginal culture. They also provide essential training in social interaction.

It is possible to include traditional games in classroom lessons, outdoor education and adventure activities, physical education classes and sport education activities.

Backgammon

For those who have never heard about this game, I recommend you!

Old English Bowling

There is still a league in South East Hampshire that plays an what they claim is the old version of Lawn Bowls. The woods used are a minimum of Jaques No 6 Bias and have to end up within four feet of the jack to score.

Bowls

Bowls historians believe that the game developed from the Egyptians.  One of their pastimes was to play skittles with round stones.  This has been determined based on artefacts found in tombs dating circa 5,000 B.C.  The sport spread across the world and took on a variety of forms, Bocce (Italian), Bolla (Saxon), Bolle (Danish), Boules (French) and Ula Miaka (Polynesian).  The oldest Bowls green still played on is in Southampton, England where records show that the green has been in operation since 1299 A.D.  There are other claims of greens being in use before that time, but these are, as yet, unsubstantiated

Certainly the most famous story in lawn bowls is with Sir Frances Drake and the Spanish Armada.  On July 18, 1588, Drake was involved in a game at Plymouth Hoe when he was notified that the Spanish Armada were approaching.  His immortalised response was that "We still have time to finish the game and to thrash the Spaniards, too."   He then proceeded to finish the match which he lost before embarking on the fight with the Armada which he won.  Whether this famous story really took place has been heavily debated.

Mah Jong

When the West "discovered" the game around 1920 the Mah Jong craze enlarged by another factor again to encompass much of the world.  Many regions in the Far East play a game akin to the classical Chinese form but in particular, the British, the Americans and the Japanese all grabbed the game and ran with it in their own direction. 

Mah Jong first hit Japan in 1907 and, like North America and the British Empire, became a fad in the 1920s.  A similar but less dramatic experience to that of America occurred in that the initial game was simplified and then complicated again with new rules.  However, the Japanese managed to do this without completely altering the underlying nature of the game and thus the game has remained steadily popular. 

Japanese rules take two general forms - those adopted officially by the Japanese Mah Jong Association and "riichi", all the unofficial but sometimes more popular versions played by casual players.  However, the main differences from the classical Chinese game are consistent in both.  The primary modification is that the winner is paid by all players so that there are no points for second place.   Unlike other variants, therefore, each Japanese round is an all-out race to be the first to go Mah Jong as opposed to a more careful campaign with the long term objective of amassing the greatest number of points

Indoor Quoits

While two versions of Outdoor Quoits have managed to make it through the trials of the late 20th century, an indoor version of the game has also managed to thrive around the debatable border between Wales and England.  It is most popular in pubs around Powys and Evesham on the Welsh side of the border but also in Gloucestershire, Worcester and Hereford in England.   The history of Indoor Quoits, Evesham Quoits, Table Quoits or Dobbers is not at all clear but the best guess seems to be that somebody decided to invent an indoor version of the outdoor game towards the end of the nineteenth century. 

Note - the ambiguous term 'Billiards'

The word 'Billiards' has come to mean different things to different people. Presumably, the original word Billiard referred to the game of Port and King billiards played with the hoop and skittle. Later and still today in England it has come to mean the descendent of this game played with two white and one red ball - we'll call this 'English Billiards'. But as other games began to be played upon the table, Billiards could sometimes simply mean any game played on a Billiards table - i.e. the generic 'Billiards family of games'. For the purposes of this website, the term 'Billiards' will always mean the family of Billiards games.

In America the word Billiards has different meanings. It can again mean the entire family of cue games played on a table. However, because there are two sorts of table - those with pockets and those without, the American games are divided in two. The generic term for games played on a table with pockets is either 'Pool' or 'Pocket Billiards' while games played on tables without pockets are referred to as just plain 'Billiards' or 'Carom Billiards' or just 'Carom'. Not only does this further muddle the term 'Billiards', it also overlaps with the quite different Indian game of 'Carrom'! This is just too confusing so on this website the word Billiards will not be used when describing American games - games played on tables with pockets will be 'Pool'; games played on pocketless tables will be called Carambole or Carom Billiards.

In Europe and some other parts, Billiards or Billard simply refers to Carambole, the primary game that is played there. Again, the term Carambole will be used for this family of games so as to be clear.

The Billiards

The origin of the Billiards family of games is partially shrouded in mystery but it is many centuries old and almost certainly derived from an out-door game of the croquet family played during the 14th century in Northern Europe. Even the word 'billiard' has a disputed etymology - but it is likely a French derivative coming either from 'billart' (mace) or 'bille' (ball).

During the middle-ages and even back to ancient Egypt, many sports were played with balls, clubs, maces or bats and skittles. There are ancient pictures depicting games that are clearly the forerunner of modern Skittles (Americans will know this as 10 pin bowling), Bowls, Quoits and Tennis, for instance. [It is popular in textbooks to paste in pictures of these various ancient games and to claim some kind of relationship with Billiards which, in this author's opinion, is highly dubious. ]

Pachisi (Ludo)

Pachisi (also spelt Parcheesi, Pachisi, Parchisi, Parchesi; also known as Twenty-Five) is the National Game of India. The name comes from the Indian word "pacis" which means twenty five, the highest score that could be thrown with the cowry shells.  Pachisi is, in fact, the younger sister of Chaupar (or Chausar or Chaupad, also known as Pat in Sanskrit), a more venerable, complex and skilful game that is still played in India.

The Indian Emperor Akbar I of the 16th century Mogul Empire, apparently played Chaupar on great courts constructed of inlaid marble. He would sit on a Dias four feet high in the centre of the court and throw the cowry shells. On the red and white squares around him, 16 beautiful women from the harem, appropriately coloured, would move around according to his directions. Remains of these boards can be seen today in Agra and Allahabad.

There is apparently a mention of Chaupar being played between two sets of princes - cousin brothers of the Bharata family (Pandavas and Kauravas) in the epic, Mahabharata. During this game the righteous Padavas lost the game and their entire fortune to the devious Kauravas, which put his family through a lot of hardship and suffering. This was ended by a great war among them which led to destruction of the Kauravas. It is since that time that the play of this intelligent game has dwindled due to a superstition that it leads to pain and suffering...

Chinese Chess

Chinese Chess is an interesting game to learn and has a couple of twists that may come as a pleasant surprise to those familiar with modern European Chess. For instance, the General and his guards are not allowed outside the 'palace', the elephant may not cross the 'river' that separates the 2 halves of the board and the 'Cannon' can capture the enemy from any distance but only by jumping over an intervening piece...

Our board is a stylish article that comes in two sizes. The dark-wood box houses moulded trays for display or storage. The pieces are metal in detailed 3D shapes of the figures they represent - horses, chariots etc. One side is coloured to antique copper and the other to a pewter appearance.

Dominoes

Tile games of some form have been found from around 1120 AD in China. Chinese dominoes are longer than Western ones and are divided into two types and were originally carved from bone or ivory with the indented pips made of ebony.  Each Chinese tile represents one of the twenty-one different permutations of throwing two cubic dice although there are a total of thirty-two tiles since certain dominoes are duplicated.   A set of Chinese tiles is divided into two categories - Military and Civilian.   The Civilian tiles are the set of tiles that have duplicates while the Military tiles are those that are unique.  A variety of different games were and still are played with these tiles and the much more modern tile game of Mah-Jong evolved from Chinese Dominoes.

Welcome!

Have fun!