Brighton, UK: Eight men at illegal card game get robbed by two men with guns, and then call the police. (source)

Ho Che Min City, Vietnam: 50 police officers and two police dogs track down and arrest 19 people gambling in a forest. (source)

Iowa City, IO: Man shot and killed at a dice game. (source)

Bridgeport, PA: One man kills another over a beer pong game. Dead man’s last words: “Shoot me, shoot me, you guys ain’t got the (expletive)!” (source)

Dunn, NC: Robbers hit a private card game, kidnap a boy, and try to rob the boy’s grandparent’s house. (source)

Meihekou, China: Man burns down house because his wife wouldn’t give him money to play mahjong. (source)

Not criminal, but worth mentioning, both in China: A 40 year old woman foamed at the mouth, fainted, and fell off her chair from excitement at winning a game of mahjong. (source) And a 68 year old man slapped the table, fell off his chair, and broke his leg from excitement at winning a game of mahjong. (source)

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What else would you have the daughter of sculptor Paul Matisse, granddaughter of art dealer Pierre Matisse, and great-granddaughter of  French painter Henri Matisse do? She’s an artist.

She will be exhibiting 5 chess sets in an exhibition called “The Art of the Game” at the Beyond the Border International Contemporary Art Fair in San Diego (September 2 – 4). You can buy them for $16,000 a pop.

(source)

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Let’s begin with two Microsoft patents, neither of which are specifically board or card game related, but both of which are worth mentioning due to their abusive generality and obviousness:

Microsoft patent 1: Instant messaging embedded games – They claim the idea of embedded a game in an IM application. E.g. your IM application let’s you play Chess with your buddies.

Microsoft patent 2: Personalizing access of game web site based on user configuration – Presenting access on a web page to only those games you already have licensed on your computer. Using XML.

Thanks Microsoft. What would we do without you?

On to the more relevant patents:

Poker-type card game and method therefor – After two cards, the highest hand places a wager. As each of the next three community cards is revealed, the losing hand places a wager at least equal to the first wager. Highest hand in the end takes the pot. Played against a dealer, for some reason; I’m not sure how house keeps the advantage.

Modified chess set and method of playing a modified game of chess – 9×9 chess board with two “princes” instead of a queen (same movement rules). Way to exclude the only powerful female character in the history of abstract games.

Game player selection device and method – An electronic gizmo that can randomize turn order in a board or card game, as well as keep track of whose turn it is. Cute. I like it.

Methods of playing card games comprising saying the alphabet with words, saying words with words, and saying the alphabet with words while saying words with words – Enunciation games.

Multi-player audio game and game console – A very strange game for Ipod owners. Plug your mp3 players into the game board and begin a game with various questions. When you think you have a matching song, be the first to find it on your device and press play. If your song is correct (?) you win the round. If you’re voted incorrect, the other players still have a shot.

Rectangular optimization grid and associated mathematical games – A grid apparatus upon which to play mathematical problems. For more information, see this paper by the author. (PDF)

Playing card system – This guy would like to reinvent card shuffling, since it is a) time consuming, and b) prone to mistakes and cheating. His solution: stick every card into a metallic case (like a business card holder), and throw them all into a lotto ball like cage with a crank that can be spun around.

Method and device for conducting a blackjack-type card game – The casino game Double Attack Blackjack from Nu Games.

Method and device for playing a game using a grid – Poker where the cards are arranged in a pattern on the table (triangle, square, etc) and you get to choose a subset of cards from the pattern (line, diamond). Gee. I remember playing this type of poker back in the 70s with my brother.

Board game – Pachisi, where the player’s starting positions are country names (USA, Canada, England, Jamaica) and the center space is called Paradise. The rules are exactly like Pachisi. Whoever approved this patent is an imbecile.

Varieties of human experiences board game – From the abstract: “Provides the player with real life experiences such as confrontations against other players as well with the inevitable elements of nature. The game creates a greater awareness about the complexities of modern living, and how interdependent we are with our environment.”

Poker games with varying position advantage – Any standard Texas Hold’em or Omaha game, where some of the wagering goes in the opposite direction, thus eliminating the advantage held by the last player to bet on a hand. Assigned to Prime Table Games.

Systems and methods for card games that simulate non-card casino table games – Poker and Roulette variants with a side bet. Assigned to The Pala Band of Mission Indians.

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This Chess art exhibition took place at The Reykjavik Art Museum in Iceland from January until May.

There were 15 unique Chess sets. Here are short synopses from the information page:

Muarizo Cattelan: The King on the black side is Adolf Hitler, the white side Martin Luther King. Pawns include Donatella Versace, Rasputin and General Custer (black) and Superman, Mother Teresa and Sitting Bull (white).

Jake and Dinos Chapman: Post-apocalyptic adolescents, white with blond-styled haircuts and black with Afro hair.

Oliver Clegg: An exact replica of Sigmund Freud’s desk and chair made in wood and leather.

Tracey Emin: Bronze pieces modeled in clay and all over the set are mono-prints and hand written texts in ink on fabric.

Tom Friedman: A pawn in the form of a tiny steel ball bearing or miniscule self-portrait carved out of Styrofoam. Larger objects such as a modified Crest toothpaste carton and a can of defunct Busch beer.

Paul Fryer: Chess pieces made from Tesla coils.

Damien Hirst: Medicine bottles in silver and glass with modified labels on each side. The labels for all pieces are either etched or sand blasted while the board is made from mirrored glass displaying the biohazard sign throughout and placed upon a freestanding surgical trolley with accompanying white leather dentist chairs.

Barbara Kruger: An audio chess set where each piece on the board is a miniature speaker. Every chess piece contains a series of different audio recordings from classic Kruger questions such as “What time is it?’ and ‘What’s up with your hair?’ or Kruger announcements like ‘You feel comfortable losing,’ or ‘You can’t be serious’.

Yayoi Kusama: Hand-painted porcelain pieces and board covered in brightly colored red and black spots on a white and yellow background. Housed in its own leather pumpkin case.

Paul McCarthy: Random objects chosen from the contents of his kitchen: a ketchup bottle and rubber duck, either recast to look identical to the original found object or an identical item.

Alastair Mackie: Each piece encapsulates a single suspended insect. The ‘white’ pieces are represented by flying insects and the ‘black’ side by ground based insects. So, for example, the ‘white’ knight is represented by an exotic wasp and the ‘black’ king, by a scorpion.

Matthew Ronay: Cast in bronze and then hand painted, the pieces range from pink and blue cup cakes as the King and Queen on the white side to two marijuana joints as King and Queen on the black side, one with tobacco as in the European style and the other without. The pawns appear in the guise of pizza slices, one side with pepperoni and the other side in plain cheese.

Tunga: 32 teeth in the head and 32 chess pieces on a board. Incisors, canines and molars transformed into pawns, bishops and rooks respectively.

Gavin Turk: A film approximately 14 minutes long showing Gavin, dressed in Turkish costume complete with Turban (as the Mechanical Turk), executing the Knight’s Tour with one hand in a mechanical fashion.

Rachel Whiteread: Identical copies of original miniature chairs and kitchen units, the two sides creating an opposition between utilities and furnishings.

(more pics)

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Manila, Phillipines:  1 killed, 32 injured when grenade hurled at card players and karaoke bar in town plaza. (source)

Cincinnati, OH: 2 life terms for men who killed and robbed people a card game in a home over three years ago. (source)

Not criminal – International Falls, MN: Somebody wants the person who bought two old board games at their rummage sale to kindly return the vast sums of cash that were hidden inside. Please. (source)

Brighton, UK: Banker steals £411,000 to fund her gambling addiction. (source)

Trelawny, Jamaica: Three men arrested for enticing vicitms to play cards and then robbing them right afterwards. (source)

Benton Harbor, IN: Two men shot in argument over a dice game. One lost an eye. (source)

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If you live near Amherst, MA, you might consider joining the Pioneer Valley Gamer Collective.

The Collective is a non-profit that operates a game store called Worlds Apart Games. WAG is like any other game store, with games, dice, etc, as well as place to play games, but it’s worker managed and worker owned. They also make themselves available to do game outreach, non-profit fund raising, education, and so on.

Anyone can join to get discounts and a say in what goes on.

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Asian Games: The Art of Contest is a traveling exhibition sponsored by the Mid-America Arts Alliance and the Asia Society of New York.

The exhibit offers you the chance to learn about, and play, a host of games that can trace ancestry back to the Orient, such as Chess, Backgammon, Pachisi, Snakes and Ladders, Dominoes, and playing cards. (Actually, I’m pretty sure Backgammon’s roots are in Africa.)

The exhibition has been traveling since May, 2005 and is currently at The Wilmette Historical Museum in the Chicago area. Additional scheduling dates are available for interested museums. The exhibition’s curators are Colin Mackenzie and Irving Finkel.

(source)

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Bet you didn’t know that the rulebook for tournament Chess looks a whole lot like the rulebook for tournament Magic: the Gathering, did you?

FIDE updates their rules on occasion. The following new rules go into effect on July 1:

• If one player is late to the game by any time, he or she loses immediately (you don’t simply start his or her clock). If both are late, white’s clock is started. I don’t know how this works. If white shows up 15 minutes late and black shows up 20 minutes late, does white win or does white start playing with fifteen minutes off of his or her time?
• A few misc rules about broken clocks and how to offer a draw.
• I like this one: mobile phones, and any other electronic communication devices, are forbidden at the game, unless switched off. “If any such device produces a sound, the player shall lose the game.” Heh. What if your digital watch goes off in your pocket with your switched off mobile phone?
• Some rules about illegal moves in blitz games.

(source)

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As source relates, an Afghan journalist and a NY Times reporter escaped from over seven months in captivity using a daring plan and a board game.

After surveying the area and sequestering some rope,

On Friday evening, in a planned bid to keep their captors awake as late as possible to ensure that the men would eventually sleep soundly, Mr. Ludin challenged the militants who slept beside them in the same room to a local board game.

When at last the games ended at midnight, the journalists waited for the militants to fall asleep.

(source)

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Chocolate Chess sets come and go, but some show a little more style than others. This one is from KeyDesign, an industrial design group. Something about a Croatian legend.

Here’s another pretty one, if a tad more conventional looking. Certified kosher, too.

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