Playing Carrom Board Game

Hey, its Sunday today and I decided to clean my store room; that also preserves my precious board games.  And there beneath all the games was my Carrom Board.  One of my favorite games.  However, with the busy schedule and variety of games available today, I had completely forgotten it.  Many like me would have done the same.  That’s the reason I thought of writing something about Carrom and refresh the memories.

Playing Carrom

Carrom is a classic game played all over the world especially in Asia and Far East.  This game has been given various names: Indian Finger Billiards, Carom, Carroms, Carrum, Karum, Carum and table billiards.

For Playing Carrom you need a Carrom board, the size could be of your choice ( Mini carrom boards are also available for children),   Carrom men – a  set of nineteen light discs – nine white, nine black and one red (referred to as the Queen) and a Striker.

Carrom is usually played in teams with 2-4 players.  The opponent sits in the opposite direction.  3 players can play carrom game against each other for points. The game is played on a square, wooden board with four corner pockets. The goal is to collect points by sinking your nine pieces, and the “queen” in red,  in the pockets before your opponent. The game begins by flicking the striker at the target pieces.

Here are simple rules and tips of Carrom:

1.  Arrange the carrom discs with the red “queen” in the middle and the whites should be lined up to form a “Y” around the “queen” and blacks to replace the empty spaces around the “queen” and the whites.

Setting Carrom Discs

2.  Each player is allowed to only strike from that side where he sits.

3.  The contestant holding white plays first or a toss of a coin can also decide who plays first.

4.  Your continue to play as long as you keep sinking your pieces – luck shots count and all combinations are permitted.

5.  The red queen can be pocketed at any time after sinking your first piece but must be sunk before your last one. After winning the queen, you need to sink one of your pieces, thereby ‘covering’ it, into any pocket in the next shot, or she is returned to the center spot.

6.  Once the queen is covered, whoever clears their pieces first wins the carrom board game.

Tips:

Strikers

To be sure that you are playing accurately and the striker is really on line, try to touch the striker with your fingernail.

The striker may not touch the pieces in diagonal arrow line. (This rule only applicable in India)

If you sink the striker, you will be penalized a turn and another green piece will be added to the board.

If in a single shot you sink more than 1 green piece, you will be rewarded with an extra turn.

Do not sink any red pieces.  If you sink a red piece, you will lose a turn, even if you sank a green piece in the same shot.

For the web lovers online carrom game is also available on the net. A free version of carrom called Couronne has been developed by MiniClip. The board is the same as a carrom board, but the pieces are green and the striker is yellow. The objective is to sink all of the green pieces to move up in the levels.

If you are also a carrom lover and have some additional information and tips to share please mail me I would be glad to add.

All You Ever Wanted To Know About Settlers of Catan:

All You Ever Wanted To Know About Settlers of Catan:
(all about Klaus Teuber as well as history, rules, tips about Settlers of Catan)

Settlers of Catan is a multiplayer board game which has been designed
by Klaus Teuber. It entered the markets in 1995 in Germany by
Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) under the name Die Siedler von Catan.
Today, settlers of catan hits in top 10 board games on the net.
Its not only famous in Germany but also achieved a lot of popularity outside
Europe and has been named as ‘killer app’ of designer board games.

By 1991, Klaus Teuberwas was well on his way becoming one of the
planet’s hottest board game designers. He has won the Spiel des Jahres
(German prestigious award for board and card games) award four times,
for Settlers of Catan, Barbarossa, Drunter und Drüber and Adel Verpflichtet.
In the year 1999 teuberwas left his profession  as a dental technician
to become a full-time game designer.

Settlers of Catan is ranked as one of the most top strategy games of
all time.

Settlers board game being the Island is composed of hexagonal tiles of
different land types which are laid out randomly at the beginning of
each game. In this game, players represent themselves as settlers as
they establish colonies on the island of catan. Once players get settled, they start building settlements, cities and roads. They build these by spending resources (clay, lumber, wool, grain, and ore) represented by resource cards. Each land type produces a specific resource.

Each players will roll 2 dices determining which hexes produce resources. Any players with settlements or cities adjacent to hexes marked with the number rolled receive resource cards of the appropriate type. An unique robber is on the board, if a players rolls 7, they can move the robber to any hex, which will no longer produce resources until the robber is moved again, the robber can even steal a resource card from another player. The main object of this game is to gain valuable resources and build settlements.

A successful strategy is required to win at each and every board and
card games. Do go through the following tips to master this game: –

1) In settlers, every one should try to build the settlements so as to
increase the overall resources. Generally, it is better because it
take away all the opportunity from your opponents to generate those
resources.

2) Secondly, you should understand the value of bricks in this game.
There are only 3 bricks and 3 ore tiles and 4 of other type. Ore is
necessary for cities while brick necessary for roads and settlements,
these 2 are considered as a base to win. Since there are less brick
tiles, it is the most worthy resource.Do remember
this while trading.

3) While trading in settlers game, you should always remember 2 important
things, you should trade “intelligently” and “aggressively”. You should evaluate the board and find which resources are less and which one is in abundant according to that you should treat the rare resources as more valuable in order to get a greater deal for them.

Trading well is a skill you will learn over time, but remember to be “intelligent” and “aggressive” and only then will your progress be much quicker.

Do glance through this section again as I am working on advance strategies
for Settlers and will be posting them soon…

Winning in Monopoly

There are excessive board games available today, however, Monopoly has remained an all time favorite across the globe.

Monopoly

The only drawback of this extremely successful game is that though many people love it they don’t play it regularly as it takes a lot of time to complete it.  Even after starting the game and getting involved, the only thought that comes to our mind is When will this game end?? Still, we have the urge to play as Monopoly is real fun.

Monopoly involves: Money, backstabbing, wheeling & dealing and some luck. Monopoly is for all money lovers and there are a very few people who say that they are not fond of money. You need to be good at making money and if you are known for making wrong descions in business than you are sure to lose this game.

For those good at making money here are some rules and strategies that can help you win the Monoploy game and finish it quickly.

Play according to the Official Rules: The fastest way to end the game is to play the game according to the rules. Don’t purchase Free Parking. Don’t allow people free visits when they land on your property. If you do not want the game to drag… Don’t play nice!!! as you forget the cardinal reason for playing the game.

Keep in Mind your end Goal : You main goal in Monopoly is to make everyone go bankrupt except you. You have to own everything so that everyone has nothing and that’s the end of the game. You win!!! Keep this always in your mind while playing. If you be nice you lose. That’s the reason I told you Don’t be nice. After all its just a game and not reality….

Properties : Properties in the orange and violet groups, as well as the railroads can be valuable as these receive the most traffic and take less money to develop. On the first round around the board buy EVERY piece of property you land on. Owning as much property as possible is the main key to winning the game.

Prefer Houses to Hotels : Always monopolize the houses also and not just properties. According to the Monopoly rules every game has 32 houses and 12 hotels. You need 4 houses to begin with because to build a hotel you need build 4 houses first. By purchasing houses you can also create a house shortage for your opponents, making it difficult for them to build houses or hotels.

One useful Tip : Always keep some money in reserve. Don’t forget, you’ll have to pay rents and other fees.

Remember these simple rules and you can make huge amounts of money in this popular game called Monopoly.

Othello Game Rules and World Othello Championship:

Othello Game Rules and World Othello Championship:

Othello Game

Othello also known as Reversi, is a classic strategy game.  It is played by two players on a 8 x 8 board.   The pieces that a player plays with are disks with a light and a dark face. Each side belongs to one player. The objective of this game is to finish the game with the greater amount of pieces (circles) of the same color.

Rules :

Each of the two sides of the disk corresponds to one player; they are referred to here as light and dark after the sides of Othello pieces, but “heads” and “tails” would identify them equally as well, so long as each marker has sufficiently distinctive sides.

The game starts with four markers placed in a square in the centre of the grid, two facing light-up, two pieces with the dark side up. The dark player goes first.

Dark Disks must be placed is such a way that there forms at least one straight (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) occupied line between the new piece and another dark piece, with one or more contiguous light pieces between them.”

After placing the piece, dark player turns over (flips, captures) all light pieces lying on a straight line between the new piece and any anchoring dark pieces. All reversed pieces now show the dark side, and dark player can use them in later moves — unless light player has reversed them back in the meantime.

Players take alternate turns. If one player cannot make a suitable move, the other player gets the turn to play  The game comes to an end when neither player can make a move. This occurs when the board has filled up, or when one player has no more pieces on the board, or when neither player can legally place a piece in any of the remaining squares. The player with the maximum pieces on the board at the end of the game wins.

World Othello Championship (courtesy: wikipedia) –

Year	Location	World Champion	Country	Team	Runner-Up	Country
1977	Tokyo	Hiroshi Inoue	Japan	N/A	Thomas Heiberg	Norway
1977*	Monte Carlo	Sylvain Perez	France	N/A	Michel Rengot (Blanchard)	France
1978	New York	Hidenori Maruoka	Japan	N/A	Carol Jacobs	USA
1979	Rome	Hiroshi Inoue	Japan	N/A	Jonathan Cerf	USA
1980	London	Jonathan Cerf	USA	N/A	Takuya Mimura	Japan
1981	Brussels	Hidenori Maruoka	Japan	N/A	Brian Rose	USA
1982	Stockholm	Kunihiko Tanida	Japan	N/A	David Shaman	USA
1983	Paris	Ken’Ichi Ishii	Japan	N/A	Imre Leader	Britain
1984	Melbourne	Paul Ralle	France	N/A	Ryoichi Taniguchi	Japan
1985	Athens	Masaki Takizawa	Japan	N/A	Paolo Ghirardato	Italy
1986	Tokyo	Hideshi Tamenori	Japan	N/A	Paul Ralle	France
1987	Milan	Ken’Ichi Ishii	Japan	USA	Paul Ralle	France
1988	Paris	Hideshi Tamenori	Japan	Britain	Graham Brightwell	Britain
1989	Warsaw	Hideshi Tamenori	Japan	Britain	Graham Brightwell	Britain
1990	Stockholm	Hideshi Tamenori	Japan	France	Didier Piau	France
1991	New York	Shigeru Kaneda	Japan	USA	Paul Ralle	France
1992	Barcelona	Marc Tastet	France	Britain	David Shaman	Britain
1993	London	David Shaman	USA	USA	Emmanuel Caspard	France
1994	Paris	Masaki Takizawa	Japan	France	Karsten Feldborg	Denmark
1995	Melbourne	Hideshi Tamenori	Japan	USA	David Shaman	USA
1996	Tokyo	Takeshi Murakami	Japan	Britain	Stéphane Nicolet	France
1997	Athens	Makoto Suekuni	Japan	Britain	Graham Brightwell	Britain
1998	Barcelona	Takeshi Murakami	Japan	France	Emmanuel Caspard	France
1999	Milan	David Shaman	Netherlands	Japan	Tetsuya Nakajima	Japan
2000	Copenhagen	Takeshi Murakami	Japan	USA	Brian Rose	USA
2001	New York	Brian Rose	USA	USA	Raphael Schreiber	USA
2002	Amsterdam	David Shaman	Netherlands	USA	Ben Seeley	USA
2003	Stockholm	Ben Seeley	USA	Japan	Makoto Suekuni	Japan
2004	London	Ben Seeley	USA	USA	Makoto Suekuni	Japan
2005	Reykjavík	Hideshi Tamenori	Japan	Japan	Kwangwook Lee	South Korea
2006	Mito	Hideshi Tamenori	Japan	Japan	Makoto Suekuni	Singapore
2007	Athens	Kenta Tominaga	Japan	Japan	Stéphane Nicolet	France
2008	Oslo	Michele Borassi	Italy	Japan	Tamaki Miyaoka	Japan

*This rivalling Monte Carlo world championship is usually not considered to be an official world championship. In official homepages it is called the first Europe Championship.

Othello computer games are also very exciting. Even if you do not have company to play with; the online version would surely give you the same or even more competition than that of a human being. So go on try out, if you are looking out for some competitive and thrilling experience of playing online. I’m sure you would enjoy online Othello without a shred of regret…

Mochy Crowned Backgammon World Champion 2009

Mochy Crowned Backgammon World Champion 2009

Backgammon is a board game of two players, its seen that, it has attracted an immense number of players. I truely believe that though luck plays a important role to win this game, strategy too is a major ingredient for a win .

My belief of luck and strategy is supported by Masayuki Mochizuk game, he is a well known Japanese Backgammon player who won World Backgammon Championship 2009. 173 players took part in the tournament and every one paid ?1,000, entry fee for the 2009 World Backgammon Champion!

Mochy Mochizuki was titled as world’s best backgammon Champions after defeating Lars Trabolt, world’s Backgammon champion 2008, at the finals held at Monte Carlo World
Championship, sponsored by online gambling site CasinoRip.com.

Mochy is the first Japanese champion in the history of the world backgammon championships, and probably one of the youngest players (born in 1979) to achieve this impressive title.

Viswanathan Anand :

Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand an Indian Chess champion and the
current world champion, was born on 11th December 1969 in Chennai,
Tamil Nadu to Krishnamurthy Viswanatha and  Susheela. His father
Krishnamurthy, who is an retired General Manager, Southern Railways,
and mother Susheela, housewife is an chess/film/club aficionado and an
influential socialite. He has 2 siblings- a brother and a sister.

He gives all his credit for his chess play to his mother, who motivated him
so much that he started playing uner the age of 6. He described his start in
chess in a conversation with Susan Polgar who is a Hungarian-born American
chess player.

Anand did his schooling in Don Bosco, Egmore, Chennai and holds a
degree in commerce from Loyola College, Chennai. When he is not playing
chess he enjoys pursuing his other hobbies of reading, swimming & listening to music.

His Great achievements:

Anand won the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2000 for the first time after defeating Alexei Shirov in the final match held at Tehran.

In September 2007, he once again succeeded in becoming the World Champion by winning that year’s FIDE World Championship Tournament held in Mexico City.

In 2008, Anand was successful in defending his Championship title against
Kramnik in the World Chess Championship held in October in Bonn, Germany.

After such fine play resulting in consecutive successes, he became the first person to win the world championship in three different formats: Knockout, Tournament, and Match.

Anand is one of the four players in history to break the 2800 mark on the FIDE rating list. He was at the top of the world rankings five out of six times, from April 2007 to July 2008. His reign since July 1996 in the top three spot ended in October 2008 as he got dropped out of the world top three ranking.

In 2007 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian award. He is also the first reciver of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991?92. India’s highest sporting honour.

Mancala Games

Playing Mancala

Ever heard about Mancala games. I’m sure the lovers of traditional board games would be aware of Mancala. Mancala also called “sowing” games, or “count-and-capture” games is no one game but a type, or designation, of game. It is a family/class of board games. The word mancala comes from the Arabic word Naqala meaning literally “to move.” Mancala games are the oldest form of board games still famous in many parts of the world especially in many African and some Asian societies.

The game begins with the players placing an equal number of seeds, as per the variation in use, in each of the pits on the game board. A turn consists of removing all seeds from a pit, placing one in each of the following pits in sequence, and capturing based on the shape of board. This is the general game play sequence that applies to all games, although the details of each game may differ greatly. The object of mancala games is usually to capture more stones than the opponent.

According to wiki the most widely played games are probably:

Bao is a complex strategy game of Kenya and Zanzibar, played on an 8×4 board and is a “multi-lap” game with several sowings on each turn. This game is played in Zambia, Ethiopia and Kenya. It is very popular in Malawi, where it is often called Bawo.

Kalah is the ruleset usually included with commercially available boards; however, the game is heavily biased towards the first player, and it is often considered a children’s game. The board is 2×6 with stores, with one sowing only per move. Computerised versions are also available on the Net.

Oware, the national game of Ghana, is also known by Warri, Ayo, Awele, Awari, Ouril, and other names. It has relatively simple rules but considerable strategic depth. The board is 2×6 with stores, with only one sowing per turn. It is a “single-lap” game.

Omweso

Omweso (also known as coro) is a strategic game of Uganda, played on an 8×4 board. It is a “multi-lap” game with the possibility of several sowings on each move. The board has rectangular holes , does not fold, and has a handle for hanging up when not in use.

Pallanguzhi is played in Southern India with 2 x 7 stores. Two varieties of this game are popular, Kaashi and Bank.

There are more than 200 different names of mancala games. Many modern versions of mancala have been introduced in last few decades Few are Glass Bead Game , Mini Mancala ,Oh-Wah-Ree. Lets see if these new variants can be as famous as the oldest board games; Bao and Oware are till today.

If you are interested in any one type of traditional board game.. do let me know as I am doing an indepth research on the same, I may be able to help you…

Ever heard about Mancala games

The game begins with the players placing an equal number of seeds, as per the variation in use, in each of the pits on the game board. A turn consists of removing all seeds from a pit, placing one in each of the following pits in sequence, and capturing based on the shape of board. This is the general game play sequence that applies to all games, although the details of each game may differ greatly. The object of mancala games is usually to capture more stones than the opponent.

According to wiki; the most widely played games are probably:

Bao is a complex strategy game of Kenya and Zanzibar, played on an 8×4 board and is a “multi-lap” game with several sowings on each turn. This game is played in Zambia, Ethiopia and Kenya. It is very popular in Malawi, where it is often called Bawo.

Kalah is the ruleset usually included with commercially available boards; however, the game is heavily biased towards the first player, and it is often considered a children’s game. The board is 2×6 with stores, with one sowing only per move. Computerised versions are also available on the Net.

Oware, the national game of Ghana, is also known by Warri, Ayo, Awele, Awari, Ouril, and other names. It has relatively simple rules but considerable strategic depth. The board is 2×6 with stores, with only one sowing per turn. It is a “single-lap” game.

Omweso (also known as coro) is a strategic game of Uganda, played on an 8×4 board. It is a “multi-lap” game with the possibility of several sowings on each move. The board has rectangular holes , does not fold, and has a handle for hanging up when not in use.

Pallanguzhi is played in Southern India with 2 x 7 stores. Two varieties of this game are popular, Kaashi and Bank.

There are more than 200 different names of mancala games. Many modern versions of mancala have been introduced in last few decades Few are Glass Bead Game , Mini Mancala ,Oh-Wah-Ree. Lets see if these new variants can be as famous as the oldest board games; Bao and Oware are till today.