Board games

Keith Law isn't a name with which most people are familiar.  He writes for espn.com and devotes himself to major league baseball, specializing in the MLB draft and in assessing the teams' various farm systems.  He's a Harvard grad who's worked with a MLB team, and I appreciate his more cerebral approach to the game, even if he uses Sabrmetrics beyond my understanding (which really isn't that hard, since it involves math).  But what I like about Mr. Law most is that he's very diverse.  He's not all about baseball and only baseball.  In fact, he has his own blog that only treats sports tangentially.  You can read The Dish here:

http://meadowparty.com/blog/

Anyway, one of the topics with which Mr. Law busies himself is gaming, as in video and board games.  I haven't heard of a tenth of the ones he reviews, but it got me thinking:  What are the video and board games I like?  As if anyone would care, here are my favorites and my relative aptitude for them:

Stratego:  I've played this since I was a child.  I'm not bad at it.  My childhood friend Greg and I used to play it so much that he actually came up with a larger map with slightly different features for two sets of pieces per player.  I still have that board.  Now if only I had someone with whom to play it.

Joint Operations:  Typhoon Rising:  It's really the first online FPS (first person shooter) game that I played, and although my skills were nowhere near as good as those teenagers who played it with vastly superior operating systems twenty-four hours a day, I wasn't bad.  I enjoyed it more than one can believe.  I could have been addicted to it myself had it come out when I was young.

Chess:  It's the classic game of strategy.  I can understand how many smart people went nuts trying to master it.  I'm not bad when I've been playing it for awhile, but I don't have the time for it.  I'm not bad for a casual player, but I lack the patience necessary to be a great player.  I get fidgety when waiting for the other player's move, and then when it's in the endgame, I rush my moves out of impatience.  But I do love the game.

Cribbage:  Sure, this is a card game, but it's about the only one I'm decent at, and it is played on a board.  I have a sweet board I bought in Granada, Spain, and I'd love to be able to use it.

Uno:  The only non-board card game at which I have any proficiency, it's Gar-animaled, which explains its allure to me.  I prefer the cutthroat version.

Axis and Allies series:  I've played this by myself, not how it's ended to be played.  I enjoy games of strategy and war games, and this is a win-win as a result.  Now if only I had someone with whom to play.

The Myst Trilogy:  I played Myst and fell in love with it.  Then I got caught up in JOTR and left this alone.  Computers were improved and the game didn't match the pace of the improvements, but I have the boxed set and would love to revisit it someday.  It's logic and strategy combined.

Chinese Checkers:  I'm not great at it, but I prefer it to the basic checkers game, especially if more than two people are playing.

Trivial Pursuits:  About the only version of this I've played is the original version, although I think I'd be quite good at an all-sports version of the game.

Mahjongg Dimensions:  My gallows humor says I play it to fend off Alzheimer's, but I just find it enthralling.  I'm good enough now I can play it when I'm on the phone.

Sudoku:  I got frustrated with this and gave it up for awhile until I read in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo that Lisbeth Sander did them easily.  Now I'm back to frustrating myself liberally, shocking myself occasionally and wasting time endlessly.  No, it's not a board or a video game, but I do need to write on something hard, so it makes the list.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles