Games and puzzles

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this book is entertainment and learning  through games and puzzles. It is true Edutainment. Another objective is that it should not be expensive and the hardware for making and playing should essentially be paper and pencil.

There is something about a puzzle which appeals to almost everyone, young and old, possibly a challenge to our thinking powers.And, when we solve a puzzle or win a 2 person strategic game which challenges our mind, there is a feeling of joy and a sense of superiority. It trains young minds to think logically and mathematics is slowly introduced to their way of decision making.

The games presented here are mainly 2 person strategic board games. They are not games which have any violence or call for

 finger agility. They do not rush you for time. However if they do not have the visual charm of colourful scenes , characters and playthings there is another type  of beauty and friendship to be seen with numbers , their operators and their patterns.

Unfortunately do not include Chess, the king of all board games and are form a  subject by itself and they do not include ,Bridge the Queen of all card games as  Card games and  Dice games are also not covered. Here the Games are straight forward mind games with minimum proprietary tools

HISTORY

Puzzles and games have been popular since ancient times and several examples are there that with these playthings great mathematicians and scientists got to their discoveries and inventions Some past examples of these mathematicians  are  Kepler,Pascal, Fermat, Leibninz and Euler .It could be said that this new branch of intellectual activity is a trigger even today. 

The Hex game was invented simultaneously  by mathematicians Piet Hein of the Neils Bohr Institute and John Nash of Princeton University around 1942. The board game Quarto was invented a Swiss mathematician B.Muller in 1991. Dr. Edward De Bono was a medical doctor and a Nobel Prize nominee and he invented the L-Game in 1973. The “Sprouts” paper and pencil game was invented by mathematicians John Horton and Michael Paterson of the Cambridge  University  in the early sixties. Though the strategic game of Nim had an ancient origin , its name and game development were due to the mathematician Charles L.Bouton of Harvard university  in 1901.

Another great English mathematician from Princeton university and cryptologist  and father of the computer,Alan Turing  is well known for his Chess machine algorithm which played against chess genius Kasparov in 2012, without a computer.A great contribution was made in 1928 when John von Neumann opened up the most promising  mathematical tool devised  “Theory of games” ,an analysis of man social behaviour .He proved that there is mathematically determinable  best possible strategy that you as a player can put to maximum advantage regardless of what the opponent does. He proved that there exists is each case an optimum strategy. He made management and decision making in general into a game  for them .

Almost all the games and puzzles discussed here have a minimum element of chance and are based on maths and logic.Before that it is worth mentioning one game, which is a pioneer to the rest.

Requirements

For the paper version, several sheets of white paper, pencil, 2 marker  pens red and blue, eraser, ruler, glue, a few sheets of cardboard ( preferably white), and a pair of scissors . If you can have ready 16 red and 16 blue circular pieces( 2 cm diameter) cut out , you will be able to play most of the games. 

Tic Tac Toe and Noughts and Crosses

Tic Tac Toe (America) and Noughts and crosses (  English ), with Xs and Os crossed is a paper and pencil game for two players.They  take turns marking the spaces in a 3 x 3 grid. The player who  succeeds in placing  three of them in a horizontal vertical a diagonal Row is the winner.  This simple game  can be traced back to ancient Egypt where such game boards have been found on roofing tiles dating from around 1300 BC. An early  variation of tic-tac-toe was played in the Roman Empire around the first century as  the games grid markings have been found chalked all over Rome.

Many board Games share the element of trying to get first 3 in a row including Three men Morris, 9 Man Morris, Dara, Pente, go Maku, PICARIA, Qubic ,  connect 4,  gobblet , order and chaos, toss across and Mojo . Markings of this game have been found in  Egypt ,Spain,India,Italy,Africa,Ghana,nigeria,etc

          

The basic concept is of just 2 and the sequence of Game play ( three in a row)and the square grid platform for placement were adopted for most of the games derived thereafter.

 In the games section, I have classified the games as per the Gameplay.

1.           ALIGNMENT.   “ IN A ROW”  

                      “TIC TAC TOE” “ACHI”, “9 MEN MORRIS”, “3 MAN

                       MORRIS “, “DARA”, “CONNECT  4”,”PICARIA”

2.           CONNECTION.            “JOINING DOTS” 

                          “DOTS AND BOXES”,”SPROUTS”,”SIM”,”CRAM”

3.             TERRITORY.       LINKING OPPOSITE SIDE” 

               “HEX” “BRIDG-IT”,”TWIXT”,”ARNI  KNIGHTS”, “ 5     FIELD KONO”

4.              DEDUCTION         GIVING FEEDBACK” 

                BATTLESHIPS”,”.MASTERMIND”,   “BULLS And 

                      COWS”.,”WALLPAPER”                                                   

5.           COUNTING “. 

                         NIM”,”31”, MOORES NIM”, “FIBONACCi

                        NIM”,”WYTHOFFS NIM”, “MONOPILE”,                   
SHUT THE BOX,   “DUDENEYS 31”    

                        

6.              NO CATEGORY.    THE :” L-GAME”, “SODOKOGAME”,

               “MOVE AND ROTATE”,