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On my travels I have played and seen so many different games and I thought as I enjoy this side of life so much I would write about them today. Plus its a bit easier to write about than social and cultural norms where your glimpse is normally the tip of a very large topic. Actually after starting to write this I realise that it is a very large topic too! So here is the first installment and if it gets read a lot or there is a request a second installment will be produced in a few blogs time.
So what is the best street game in the world?
OK, OK too fast, What games are there?
Nard A variant on Backgammon where you can’t take any pieces even if there is just one piece on a triangle. So it becomes a tactic to line up six pieces in a row so that any dice throw means your opponent won’t be able to move. The best game I saw was between two deckhands on the boat from Baku to Turkmenbashi. BANG! Was someone just shot, no blood, it wasn’t me, BANG! Blimey, is the ships hull popping?
Ah no they are playing nard. It was obviously a good game as every time a important move is made the player must slam the piece down with as much of his might as possible, this indicates to his opponent that when he throws dice, he does it properly. And possibly that not only that he is better at nard but also more muscular. Well these two guys were standing by the end of the game to get more height into their slams. A exciting finish, I think the one who sprained his wrist lost.
Board: 24 inward pointing triangles of alternating colour.
Game Type: Get your pieces to the end first.
Chinese Chess A quality version of chess, it’s like chess with a different board and slightly different pieces, but the concept of checkmate is still the object. The key difference is that this is a faster game and much more aggression is required both in making tactics and in placing pieces, somewhat similarly to Nard, the strength of the move is reinforced by the noise it makes making that move. Be aware of your playing surface! I once saw an over-excited checkmate where
Cards before Work
Actually not Durak but played with a similar wrist actiona man flipped the whole board over showering the local fish seller with pieces and instead of winning the game, the man was made to collect the pieces out of the live crab enclosure.
Board: A red lined grid of 9 nodes per rank, with diagonal lines within the last two ranks between the middle three nodes. A river divides the two sides of the board.
Type: Out manoeuvre your opponent.
Durak Famed in all of the CIS, one of the great positive influences of the Russian Empire. This game sadly fails to have broken through into neighbouring Europe or China. But a great and relatively simple game it is, with malice and strategy mixed in with a bit of luck. The first player is a defender who has to play a higher card of the same suit on any attacking card or play a trump. The players next to this player are attackers who lay down cards to be defended. But after the first attack they may only play cards that are already on the table(by number) so an attack of a 4H is beaten by a 6H then only attacks of 4’s or
6’s can be made.
Just a normal deck of 52 cards required, a bottle of vodka and some cruel intentions. This game also carries a power element (like any good Russian game), this one is all in the wrist, a good play especially a defend should make a satisfactory slap sound on the card below. A skill that is hard to repeat.
Type: Get rid of your cards.
Chess This is by far the most widespread, played in every country i have visited although the most played in many countries. Known in the west as an intellectuals game, but not here in the east, its quite likely that you see a waiter and mechanic sit down and play out a game when business lulls in the afternoon. It differs from the above games in the way of aggression, this game relaxes and calms and generally the most serene person wins. Rules don’t vary, it is truly universal. Key skill is to be able to hold large series of moves in your head at one time.
Board: Black and White 8x8 chequered pattern.
Type: Out manoeuvre your opponent.
Ludo I have never seen
such a heated and excited game in all my childhood as the one I saw being played on the streets of Saigon by four hot-blooded over-70s. Red rolls 4 and 5 and BAM! There goes two blues back the house, a raucous laugh by yellow and green whilst blue lights up to get over the stress of having to roll two more sixes!
I was with a German at the time and he told me it is also popular in Germany, but from a British perspective it is definitely confined to those younger than 10.
Board: A ludo board of four colours leading and a path leading from each corner to the central home.
Type: Get your pieces to the end first.
Ping Pong Ok, enough with the board games, this street game is really a street game. You can go to many parks or roads around the world and find people playing this, honest. And what a game, especially when you channel your anger and force into that little bit of plastic so it fires into the table rather than sawing in the sky. Has the disadvantage of requiring a bit more kit than your
average street game but still relatively inexpensive.
Board: A painted plywood board divided into two by a little vertical net. A white line splits the board longitudinally in half, this is only used for serving.
Type: Play shots that bounce on the opponents half of the table without letting the ball touch the floor anywhere or bounce twice on your side of the table when it is your turn.
Dominos This age old pub classic is played seemingly with very similar versions wherever you go. Of course dominoes are more than one game, but still I have seen games that I fully understand instantly from my time in the Henry Jenkins. And what a game to enjoy over a pint of bitter and a cig (as the ones I met in the HJ) or a pot of tea and pipe (as the ones I met in Armenia). What more can be said, it isn’t complicated and all you have to do is knock if you can’t go, no fancy rules or language requirements!
Board: Can be a table or any flat surface, with 28 tiles with two ends, each tile has 0-6 spots on each
end, no combination of two ends is repeated within the set.
Type: Get rid all yours first
Russian Billiards An interesting addition to this list, not quite Ping Pong in the physical exertion requirement, but definitely not static. This is what I can only imagine to be a throwback from colonial times, along with its English counterpart and snooker, in most countries. But the places they take Billiard Tables is astounding, I once had hitch-hiked high into the Azeri mountains and found that the tiny village I had entered, about 6 hours along a dirt track along a precipice had managed to cart one all the way up!
Russian billiards is the most difficult version of a pot based game there is, the pockets are literally the same size as the balls. All the balls are white except the cue ball which is red, inverse to snooker and they are heavier and larger than snooker and pool. The key skill is power, (now you know why it is Russian), as the ball must be at a certain velocity to over come the friction or something like that. Another thing to note, that unless you are playing in
a city you are likely to have only a wooden stump as a cue, definitely no tip, possibly pointed.
Board: A really big piece of slate covered in green felt in the shape of a rectangle. Around the edge is a rubber cushion also covered in felt and is punctuated by 6 holes with nets below to catch the balls. The holes are in each corner and the midpoint of the cushions on the longer edge. The slate is supported by four legs and a wooden frame.
Type: Pot more balls than the opponent.
So what can we conclude, my favourite I think is Chinese Chess, enough mental reasoning required, easy to cart about and not too hard to learn. I think by numbers it’s a toss up between Chess and Ping Pong. Also does anyone know what game the long thin cards in the photo are?
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His Dudeness
Ralf Kreuze
And you haven't even started on the drinking games!!
All is fun and well with your intelectual and power games, but the real man's game is of course the drinking game. And I will not believe you haven't done any, so next blog, all about these games.