English Chess Forum

Greetings. I noticed that London has a draughts cafe http://www.draughtslondon.com/

Has anyone been there? Seems like many other games are played there also.

Not a bad collection of other games that.

Yeah, they've put quite a bit of money into the place I would say.

That is a good collection. There are a number of games in there that are among my favourites.

Ironically, draughts itself seems to be missing from the library (I think).

IM Jack Rudd wrote:That is a good collection. There are a number of games in there that are among my favourites.

Each according to his or her own. I couldn't find any mention of Abalone, Boku, Continuo, Entropy or Twixt. Nor of Lines of Action, even though it's played with a Draughts set and board.

David Sedgwick wrote: I couldn't find any mention of Abalone, Boku, Continuo, Entropy or Twixt. Nor of Lines of Action, even though it's played with a Draughts set and board.

Those are all abstract games, yes? Abstract games aren't generally played very much in the boardgaming community (although they're not disliked, as such, just not in vogue).

Even the sort of 'quarter abstract' Euro's (Knizia et al) from when I was more into it seem to have drifted away from the spotlight somewhat.

A slight shame in some ways but it'd be dull if things stayed the same forever

IM Jack Rudd wrote:Those are all abstract games, yes?

Broadly speaking, that's correct. Continuo and Entropy contain elements of chance.

IM Jack Rudd wrote:Abstract games aren't generally played very much in the boardgaming community ...

That no doubt explains why they apparently don't play Draughts at Draughts.

It's abstract games which interest me.

They're terribly unforgiving things to play with groups of even slightly mixed ability though

The German board games - of which there are many in these peoples collections 'feel' quite similar in terms of playing them but have some theme and are generally carefully balanced to make it quite hard to win by a large margin/do terribly. So they're much better for that sort of context.

You could argue that it makes them healthier in general of course, perhaps not on a chess forum

Although, having said all this, one of the games I've been playing a lot at the Exeter games club recently is Splendor, which is pretty much an abstract. It just so happens that that's a good game for two or three of you to play while waiting for everyone else to arrive.

IM Jack Rudd wrote:It just so happens that that's a good game for two or three of you to play while waiting for everyone else to arrive.

Presumably this is why, despite being an abstract game, David didn't include it in his list.

IM Jack Rudd wrote:It just so happens that that's a good game for two or three of you to play while waiting for everyone else to arrive.

Alex Holowczak wrote: Presumably this is why, despite being an abstract game, David didn't include it in his list.

It's ECF election time and the modern practice seems to be for candidates seeking office to insult as many members of the electorate as possible.

However, Alex has erred in this instance. He appears to have forgotten that I am no longer a member of Council.

How ironic - but of course irony will have been intended

How is it that we have a draughts cafe (plus assorted games) but not a chess cafe in London?