This evening, I had the pleasure of meeting John Ashton, the founder of a new downtown Chicago bridge meetup.  After observing that all major bridge groups were on the way north side, i.e. near me :-P, John decided to put together a casual bridge group to allow players of all caliber to have an enjoyable social engagement around the game of bridge.

Turns out that John is also an avid history buff with a penchant for games.  He was telling me all about a variety of truly classic games, including an early Scandinanian variant of chess called Tablut.  He recently wrote a paper analyzing the game and has cordially given me permission to post the paper on our blog - Tablut Summary-Longer.pdf (73.79 kb).  Tablut is apparently a more contemporary, i.e. circa 1700s, variation of the Viking game Hnefatafl (just don't ask me to pronounce it).  John also shared with me that Aage Nielsen, a Danish software developer, produced a Java version of the game that is playable online - Hnefatafl Online.

I find old school games intriguing, having played my share of Parcheesi, Mankala and Nine Men's Morris over the years.  John promised me a chance to view his collection of historic games at the bridge meetup this Wednesday at his place.  For those of you more interested in contemporary board games, be sure to check out the Chicago Boardgames Meetup Group this Tuesday night at Goose Island.