Game Blotter

The widow of the inventor of The Game of Life has filed suit in federal court against Rueben Klamer, Linkletter Holdings, and Hasbro claiming that the defendants improperly sublicensed a television show, gambling machines, and other uses of her late husband’s invention without permission.

Koneru Humpy, the top woman Chess player in India, made her complaints about the competence of the arbiters in the recent Commonwealth Championship publicly. The All India Chess Federation (AICF) apparently didn’t like that, so they filed a complaint against her with FIDE’s Ethics Commission.

Elsewhere in India, the Tamil Nadu Braille Chess Association wants a quota of government jobs set aside for people who are visually impaired and excel at a sport, including Chess.

The World Chess Museum in St. Louis has prevailed in its trademark dispute with the World Chess Federation of Las Vegas (not to be confused with FIDE, the World Chess Federation based in Athens). The St. Louis museum claimed rights related to a World Chess Hall of Fame, a trademark for which it registered in 2002 based on a deal with FIDE. The Las Vegas organization announced plans for a World Chess Federation Hall of Fame in 2011. A default judgement found for the World Chess Museum after the World Chess Federation failed to identify a new attorney by the required deadline.

A senior center in Muncie, Indiana was notified by the Indiana Gaming Commission that its weekly Euchre games were illegal gambling. The events charged $2.50 to play and handed out small prizes like fruit or cookies. Not that the Commission had ever intended to pursue the matter further but the Governor got involved anyway and ordered them not to.

Russia is considering the legalization of online Poker as a way of funding sports, including Chess.

Russia, however, still maintains a fondness for the soviet practice of rewriting history books. A volume meant to recount the history of the Spartak Chess club leaves out its most famous and successful member, who’s also a vocal opponent of President Vladimir Putin, former world champion Garry Kasparov.

In the Philippines, an off-duty police officer decided to settle an argument over a dice game with an M16 rifle. He shot four of the other players, killing one.

Peter Long alleges that the current administration of the Malaysian Chess Federation is attempting to rig the vote by delaying the next election and suspending several unsupportive state federations for non-payment of dues, even though they were never sent invoices.

Panini has managed a limited registration for the trademark “LIMITED” as it applies to trading cards.

A report by China Labor Watch (CLW) claims that workers in the Jingyu Toy Products factory, which makes toys for Hasbro and Mattel, are underpaid and forced to work extended hours.

Someone has designed a print-and-play war game as satirical commentary on the belief of some that exercises by the U.S. military are disguising an invasion of Texas.

With the legalization of marijuana in Calorado, a retired dentist has designed a roll-and-move activity board game, Pass the Grass, that includes such instructions as, “Take One Hit”.

New Zealand customs officers have found methamphetamine stuffed in toys and Mahjong sets by smugglers.

New charges were filed against an Ohio Chess coach after a second girl came forward with claims of sexual misconduct.

A ring of pedophiles were convicted in a U.K. court for using children as prizes for card games.

Another man in the U.K. has confessed to molesting three minor girls over a period of many years. One of the ways he convinced them to cooperate was to play with them a board game, then when he won choose the “touching game” to play next.

Four itinerant hucksters were arrested in South Carolina after inviting the local chief of police to play their rigged gambling game in a store parking lot. They called their game “Backgammon” even though, as a game of dropping balls in little holes, it looked nothing like the board game.

Police in Osaka, Japan arrested a couple for running a card-and-dice-game gambling operation out of a hotel room. The police accused the couple of being members of organized crime.

In Hong Kong, police raided an operation that served as a massage parlor and Mahjong club but was licensed for neither.

Four men in Shenzhen, China are in court facing charges for rigging games of Mahjong to cheat five multimillionaires out of 120 million yuan. The group allegedly rigged an apartment with high-tech surveillance and communication equipment, and were running the operation from a nearby building with game-analyzing computer software.

A high-level Chess player in the U.K., who had quit his government job to concentrate on the game, killed himself because of inconsistent performance.

Three men were stabbed outside a London Chess club. All three were taken to the hospital before police arrived at the scene.

One man was killed and others wounded in a dice-game shooting in Washington, D.C.

Shootings resulted in deaths at dice games in Tamil Nadu, D.C., Detroit, Brooklyn, and Fort Worth. Shootings without death occurred in Orange Mound, Tennessee, Natchez, Mississippi, and Henderson, Kentucky In another Detroit shooting, when a car drove by a house where people were playing dice on the front porch, someone inside opened fire, killing a 1 year old boy with the group outside. Accusations of cheating during a dice game in Chicago led to a shootout between friends and family members the next day, where one was killed. Another dice game dispute in Pontiac, Michigan led to a drive-by shootout between a man in his 30s and a 14 year old boy. Though bullets passed through neighbors homes, no one was injured. Dice game violence in Staten Island, New York involved the use of a broken bottle of Hennessy cognac.