A Board Walk

From: PhilSimborg   

I guess your point is, and mine is too, that if you love the game and play a lot, you'll enjoy it more on a board you love and "respect."

It's more than the material and the color that makes a great board...it's how the dice sound when they hit the sides....nothing beats a Taki board in that department. It's how the checkers fit on the pips...Zavoral's are as perfect as any $2000 or more European board I've ever played on. It's how the leather looks and contrasts with the colors of the board and pips....I have a Brazilian board I just love...and I also love my Taki and Zavoral boards. Maybe I love my "joke" board the most...someone covered a Chrissloid board with shiny blue velvet and put in huge, ugly green and yellow checkers, and I roll green and pink die.

I find it hard to understand how a great player like our friend Herb Roman can play day after day on a sleazy cork board where the dice don't stop spinning (like Deeb's).

I, too, fell in love with Sarge's woodwork, but the board is just too heavy for me to lug around.

Thanks for the article...nice to know I'm not the only one who gets pleasure out of a good board.

From: tobaksa   

Hi Jeffrey:

Actually Phil has supplied some valuable tips in his comments above. I'm not a woodworker so I have no idea how to make a board. But I do know that you want the colors of the wood, the surface, the pips, and the checkers to blend pleasingly. You will want the joints to fit snugly so that the board isn't loose or rattly. You will want the checkers to fit snugly when the board is closed - and open for that matter. You'll want to measure the pips to make sure that they are just as wide as the checkers.

Best of luck!

Jake

From: tobaksa   

Hi Dana:

That's quite a board you've got!

I think you may have miscounted the number of games you and your dad played. If you played 10 games an hour and twenty-five hours a week it would take forty years. Even Phil Simborg hasn't played that many.

Best,

Jake

From: gibsonian   

Jake, I really enjoyed your article (as I always do). The humor, the stories, the visualization always comes thru. I always wondered what game that was on the back of my old checker (and eventually chess) board. Finally, a co-worker and were playing different games at work during our lunch break. He seemed to be losing most of the games (hearts, cribbage, 3-D TicTacToe...) so he asked if I knew how to play backgammon. I did not but definitely wanted to learn a new board game. But of course I said, "so you want us to play a game where you are definitely the favorite?" We did not play any of the games for money, so he taught me to play.

Within one week, I was at the CHESS & GAMES store to buy a board (grey pseudo-suede outside, red and black checkers with black and red points and a grey felt field). That was 1977 and I just gave it to my grandkids last year.

Since, of course, I have had four Aries boards (one is still brand new, never used); a Brazillian board; and even a side-by-side board for use on airplanes (it opens up very long with all the inner-outer-outer-inner sections in one long line). I loved them all and here I am 32 years later with that same "fish hook" in my brain --still playing and directing tournaments. LOVE THE GAME and lots of the players.

_______________patrick (the MFIC)