Tuesday, January 12, 2010
CHESS
After math, the kids get a few minutes of chess instruction. Here they're starting a 5-minute blitz game using a chess clock. We've tried a number of ways to make games between them more even, either by reducing Alton's material or by giving Verity a certain number of hints during a game. When they play complete games like this (rather than exercises and end game positions) my primary focus is to teach them positional play (proper piece development, King safety, pawn structure, etc.) rather than having them worry about all the tactical moves that they're missing. Better tactics will come with experience.
FIELD BAGS
ANCIENT GREEK HISTORY
Both Hellenes and Perikles center around the Peloponnesian war, but are completely different. Hellenes is a 2-player card-driven wargame that largely focuses on units on the map (which is attractively illustrated on the gameboard). The units are colored wooden blocks whose identities and strengths are hidden from the opponent (see an earlier post for a photo of the game in play). The basic mechanics are largely straightforward, but some time needs to be spent playing in order to gain enough familiarity with the game that it starts to have some flow. A and I have played the first scenario (431) completely two times and have found it quite challenging for the Athenian player to stay on top of things. Maybe the Athenians should stay away from raising taxes. I think the designers did a good job creating a relatively simple game that manages to place the players in a strategic situation that has the flavor of the one that Kagan describes. It's fun when the game parallels parts of actual history. At one point, for example, the Athenian player invaded Pylos in hopes of drawing some Peloponnesian units away from Attica, which, as it turned out, is what the Greek general Demosthenes did in real life.
In contrast to Hellenes, Perikles is a much more abstracted game which centers around a political system for gaining temporary control of the six Greek city-states represented (or, failing that, the Persian forces). It's for 3-5 players and A and I have played it a few times with K.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
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