Tampa, FL: The Seminole tribe were not allowed to run banked (as opposed to non-banked) card games as of two years ago and continued to do so. They’re being sued by some people who lost money at these games. Although they are immune to lawsuits, there is special dispensation to sue anyone over gambling losses. Or something like that. (source has disappeared from site)

Berlin, Germany: Armed robbers stole $200,000 from a poker tournament, part of the European Poker Tour. (source)

Port Charlotte, FL: Police arrest management of All In.Magic Players Club for running illegal card games (the policeman sat in several games and won). (source)

Milville, NJ: Man threatens a woman at a card game with a lighter shaped like a gun. (source)

Chicago, IL: Man stabs a woman to death at an early morning card game. (source)

Cleveland, OH: Man shoots and robs another man at a dice game. (source)

LaFollette, TN: Police officer pistol-whips a man with his gun and points his gun at him when the man argues with him over money at a card game. (source)

Little Rock, AS: One man accused of shooting another over a game of Dominoes. (source)

Wichita, KS: Man buys crack cocaine using Monopoly money. (source) I don’t know who’s stupider: the seller for accepting Monopoly money, or the buyer for accepting an invitation to the seller’s house a few days later (the buyer was beat up after arriving at the house).

The also make Go, Checkers, a word game, and now a memory game.

(hat tip)

Barnes & Noble brick-and-mortar stores are running significant sales on some of their remaining holiday stock of board games. Note that not all games are on sale, but if you look around you should find a table or two of games with red stickers. Last night, I purchased Masters of Venice, Travel Blokus, and Time After Time for 75 percent off! I understand that tomorrow prices might be lowered to $2 per game. Of course, stock will vary by store and is very limited. But if you hurry up, I left you several copies of Wits & Wagers, Red November, and a variety of Goliath Games in the Rockville, Maryland shop.

Besting even the Barnes & Noble discount, White Wolf is celebrating Read an E-Book Week (did you know that was this week?) by offering a PDF copy of the World of Darkness Rulebook (normally $25) for FREE!

Mary started out as a game designer. Through the course of marketing her own games, she met other lone designers who were reinventing the wheel in terms of finding suppliers, dealing with contracts, and trying to market their games, and whose power as individuals was rather weak. She formed Discover Games in 1997 as a cooperative project to collect the wisdom of these designers and to market the group’s games as a group. Rio Grande Games and R&R Games are sample companies that got their start through Discover Games.

Mary drew her inspiration for CHI-TAG from Essen, which she attended in 2000. She spent a few years trying to build up support in the gaming community. Early support came from Rio Grande Games, R&R Games, and Out of the Box Publishing (a Chicago-based company), who formed the core of her first event in 2003.

The 2009 fair had 11,000 visitors, support from major game industry players such as Hasbro, celebrity guests such as Daryl Hannah (pimping her line of board games), and important people you’ve never heard of, such as Reuben Klamer, the inventor of Hasbro’s edition of The Game of Life. The fair also had sit downs with the publishers, toy and game awards, and a whole lot of family-friendly entertainment.

In person, Mary is amazingly sweet and charming. Yet beneath that sweetness and charm lies the determination to forge a national convention out of nothing that now has major entertainment players (yeah, bigger than Hasbro or Mattel) coming to her to find out how they can participate.

She has also founded initiatives for games in education.

Mary Couzin and Yehuda Berlinger

Mary Couzin and Yehuda Berlinger

Congo Basin Chess

Panda Tumblin’ Tower

Birds of the Amazon Backgammon

Cheetah Dominoes

Elephant & Tiger Checkers

Madagascar 4-in-a-Row

Borneo & Sumatra Ludo

Salamanders & Ladders

Crane Pick-Up Sticks

Amur Chinese Checkers

Turtle Tic-Tac-Toe

Animal Playing Cards

Polar Bear Labyrinth

8-in-1 Games Compendium (includes: chess, checkers, backgammon, ludo, pick-up sticks, salamanders & ladders, playing cards)

Clinton, SC: One man shoots another who won’t pay at a card game. (source)

Spartanburg, SC: Two men rob a house card game. (source)

Fort Wayne, IN: The management of The Poker Palace, which was allegedly running card games for charity, was actually taking all of the money for themselves. (source)

El Paso, TX: Attempted drug smuggling inside a Chess board. (source)

Sacramento, CA: Attempted drug smuggling inside a Dominoes case. (source)

Chicago: One man stabs another to death at a card game. (source)

South African president Jacob Zuma presented the British Queen with a South African Chess set, only to discover that Nelson Mandela had presented Prince Philip with a nearly identical set 14 years earlier. (source) If only that were his biggest problem.

Obset:

Jacqueline Bardner Smith, who makes items for the Franklin Mint collection, crafted a lovely Alice and Wonderland Chess set.  Check source for picture. (source)

I’ve noticed that the media tends to push dice and gambling activities as fun activities for children on the one hand, and dangerous corruption on the other.

Also in Singapore, parents are not happy about an organized Mahjong tournament at Singapore Management University. (source)

In Singapore, Mahjong is often played as a gambling game.

Long Island Republican lawmaker wants to enact a ban on selling drinking related board games to minors. (source)

Really? Proprietary drinking-themed board games sold at Toys R Us is why children drink? Really?

Not all Discovery Bay’s games are meant for children. The Saturday Night Live Game is a mix of trivia and interactive challenges drawn from four show eras (70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s). In Trash, players must guess the names of famous people and fictional characters from items in their garbage cans.

Famous Last Lines, from celebrity designers Daryl Hannah and Hilary Shepard, asks players to remember (or invent) last lines of movies. Also from the same pair, Call It is a memory game that involves matching symbols to categories, like fruit, animals, or sports.

Bizzare World: The Game is inspired by Andrew Zimmern’s Bizzare Foods show on the Travel Channel. It’s a trivia game focused on odd customs, rituals, and delicacies from around the globe.