Gamer Archaeology

More than 60 Chess pieces carved from wood and bone during the 17th century have been found during excavations at Berezovo in norhtern Siberia. Eight fashioned from fossil ivory were exhibited at the most recent Women’s World Chess Championship.

Archaeologists excavating a pottery workshop in Israel dating back 1,800 years found that the facility had recreational facilities for workers, including a spa and game room. Inside the game room were four game boards similar to Backgammon or Mancala.

A dot pattern carved in to a 4,000 year-old rock shelter in Azerbaijan was determined to be an example of a game known as 58 Holes, or Hounds and Jackals, another precursor to Backgammon. Previously found examples of the game from that period were limited to Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Near-East.

Professor Manuel Eisner, with the Violence Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, studied 700 year-old coroner’s records to produce a map of murders in 14th century London. Among his discoveries:

Like in modern societies, homicide was most likely at weekends. Almost a third of all cases (44) occurred on Sundays. Sunday was the day when people had the time to engage in social activities – drinking and playing games that would occasionally trigger frictions leading to assault.

For example:

  • In March 1301, an argument that resulted when three men interrupted a Chequers game being played by two others, ended with one of the interrupting men forcibly stripping one of the players of his clothes and stabbing the other in the chest with a dagger.
  • In November 1321, two men got in to an argument playing the dice game Hazard inside a brewery. Outside after the game, one attacked the other with a sword then ran away and took refuge in a church. Sometime in the following week he escaped and was never caught by authorities.
  • In December 1323, a tavern-keeper was stabbed by a customer that he had beaten in a game of Backgammon.

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Imagine that your favorite board game made you sick. I mean, convulsing on the floor, eyes rolling back, foaming at the mouth sick! That’s what recently happened to a 52 year old Chinese man while playing Mahjong. Still, who would have imagined a tabletop game causing seizures. But after a second incident mid-game, doctors with the Zhejiang University School of Medicine diagnosed Mahjong epilepsy.

Mahjong epilepsy is a rare reflex epilepsy syndrome, a type of condition in which seizures can be brought on by certain stimuli, such as flashing lights. Mahjong epilepsy most closely resembles a cognition epilepsy subtype, in which seizures are induced by decision-making, spacial tasks, and other thought processes. There have been cases of seizures induced by writing, drawing, and performing mathematical calculations.

In a 2007 study of 23 cases, doctors in Hong Kong, however, found Mahjong epilepsy sufficiently distinctive, noted that both playing and just watching Mahjong could lead to seizures, and ruled out stress or sleep deprivation as the cause. In the recent Chinese case, the man’s doctor hypothesized that a possible trigger could have been the patterns of circles and dots found on Mahjong tiles.

Other cases of game-induced seizures have been confirmed by medical professionals. A 1965 article in the Chinese Medical Journal documented four patients with repeated epileptic seizures playing and watching games of Chess and cards. Among these cases, the sufferers would find themselves uncontrollably gesturing with their arms, standing and spinning, and losing consciousness.

Case studies in the journal Epilepsia report on an Italian man who over a period of years suffered “arrests of thought” when playing cards or Draughts, three Asian patients for whom cards and Draughts induced tonic-clonic seizures, and an American woman who experienced generalized seizures when playing Checkers.

See also the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry for a report on a patient who’s jerking motions and loss of consciousness were evoked by attempts to solve a Rubik’s CubeNeurology for a study of 25 cases involving “activation of seizures by calculation, card, and board games“; and the Journal of Clinical Neurology (Korea) for information on 13 patients who experienced seizures while playing the card game Go-Stop and four patients who’s seizures were triggered by playing Baduk (Go).

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Scoreboard

Score Board - Boardgame tournaments, competitions and championships results and scoresChess

Fabiano Caruana killed it at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis. The six contestants represented the highest rated field ever in a Chess tournament, yet Caruana still won 7 out his 10 games, and tied in the remaining three. Caruana fished first with 8.5 points, 3 points ahead of World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

As has been the tradition since 1948, the Moscow Blitz Chess Championship was held outdoors, where the winner in the open section by a significant margin was Alexander Morozevich: 15.5 points in 19 rounds.

With a first place finish at the 6th stage in Sharjah, UAE, Hou Yifan won the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix Series and claimed a place at the Women’s World Championship to be held later in 2015.

With both challenger, Viswanathan Anand, and champion, Magnus Carlsen, having now signed their contracts, the World Chess Championship will take place November 7-27 in Sochi, Russia.

Draughts

Alexander Shvartsman won the 40th annual International Mori Open in Italy.

Sergio Scarpetta of Italy was crowned Go-As-You-Please (GAYP) World Champion. after defeating the champion of two decades, Ron King of Barbados.

Magic: The Gathering

Veteran player but first-time victor, Brandon Nelson won Grand Prix Salt Lake City with a blue/white deck, qualifying for Pro Tour Fate Reforged.

Xiangqi

At the First World Xiangqi Open team event, first place went to China and second to Vietnam.

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