THE GREATEST BOARD GAME EVER

Board games have been around forever and will not go away anytime soon.  Most board games have morphed into the digital world but they are still board games.  Most of the classic board games are known to almost everyone and every household in the country has at least a few classic board games.  For a board game to qualify for consideration, while it can have a bit of luck involved with dice or spinners, it must make use of a players knowledge or strategy in order to win.  Obviously, it must use a board of some sort for the game to be played on.

The nominees for Greatest Board Game are as follows:

MONOPOLY - This game is probably the definitive board game and most popular.  The problem with Monopoly is that it is too complicated.  It isn't complicated in and of itself, but the players, each individual household makes this game complicated.  Everybody has their own ideas about what the rules are, or what they should be.  The game also takes too much time.  It seems like you have to set aside at least four hours to get a complete game in.  Personally, I am not sure I have every played or observed a complete game of Monopoly.  I would guess that about fifty percent of the time it takes to play the game is actually arguing about the rules of the game.  The game has a historic pedigree being invented by Charles Darrow in 1934, the middle of the Great Depression.  Great timing for a game that makes people feel rich and powerful.  What would move this classic game towards the greatest board game title would be if the makers of the game published a detailed set of rules that wipe out all of the home made rules that the game is played by.

LIFE:  The big downfall of this board game is the annoying sound of the spinner.  The sound of the spinner comes in second in the irritating sound category only to the dice popper on the Trouble game.  This game is a good game in that you have to make decisions and your decisions do have consequences as the game progresses.  You decide to attend College or not which effects your salary that you receive on paydays.  You get married, get kids and pay taxes.  You have the chance to buy different types of insurance.  The goal of the game is similar to Monopoly.  Class division.  In Monopoly, the goal is to own the board.  In Life, the goal is to make it to Millionaire Acres and avoid landing in the Poor House.  The player who has the most assets and in Millionaire Acres wins.  The game does not take as long as monopoly but then again, the rules are pretty straight forward and there isn't room for a lot of change in how the game is played as there is in Monopoly.

PARCHEESI:   This game is so classic its format has been copied in the creation of games that came along later in history.  It is a simple game but at critical times a player must make decisions with their dice roll on whether to progress or move a different piece on the board in order to send the opposing player's piece back "home"  The idea is to get all your pieces, ranging in number from four to five.to the finish position.  Probably one of the best games that cover the entire age range of the typical family.

SCRABBLE:  This game's only luck input is in the drawing of tiles with letters on them.  The basis for this game is an individuals vocabulary.  It does have a Monopoly rule effect in that the rules often vary depending upon the players.  The purpose of this game is to accumulate points by using your letter tiles to spell words on the board.  If it is played strictly by the rules, mis-spelling a word or using a non-word or illegal word can cost a player dearly in points if challenged by the other participants.  There are restrictions on the type of words that can or cannot be played.  One of the interesting things about this game, in my mind, is that the English language is constantly changing as new words enter into society.  It is definitely a "brain game" and holds a special spot in almost as many homes as does Monopoly.

CHECKERS:  I had a difficult time deciding on whether to include checkers on this list or not.  There is not any luck involved.  The thing about checkers that bothers me though, is that if each player is a master of the game, every game will end up in a draw, Kind of like tic-tac-to on a somewhat larger scale.  However if one move does not follow the formula, the game can go in to several different directions and bring strategy into the game.  It is a great board game for youngsters who are developing cognitive thinking and does serve some lessons in the process of thinking.  It is also a classic board game played by families and friends since the beginning of time it seems.

BACKGAMMON:  Probably the game that uses the most strategy with the addition of a factor of chance involved.  The players moves are dependent upon a roll of the die, but what to do with that roll of the die is what makes this game great.  It isn't necessarily a difficult game, the rules are pretty straight forward, but the strategy is imperative to winning a game. What surprises me about backgammon is that it isn't more popular or well known than it is.  This game is one that a person can lose and still feel pretty good about how the game went.  There is a satisfaction in knowing that you used some good strategy that was just simply out played.

RISK:  This game has hypnotized players of all ages.  The idea of world domination and how to strategically place your "armies" make the roll of the dice in favor you or make you sweat.  It is not a simple game but once the rules are understood by the player, the game comes alive.  This game became the inspiration for many other strategic war board games such as Tactics and D-Day,  It takes a very keen mind to become a master of this classic game.

A few other games that I considered for this list were Othello, Hex, Trivial Pursuit and Chinese Checkers.
 
And the award for The Best Board Game Ever goes to................

CHESS:  Chess is the ultimate board game.  The game is one of the oldest board games dating back to the 7th century in Asia.  There is no chance in chess, pure strategy that incorporates all of the math sciences, philosophy, reason, logic  and the ability to utilize these processes that become more complex as a player progresses in their ability to play the game.  To be a chess player involves the ability to see several moves ahead to make a strategy work.  Each player has sixteen pieces all of which have their own restrictions on how they can be played.  Chess is the only board game to be considered a sport by becoming the only board game to be placed on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine during the Bobby Fischer era.  It is played world wide and has a ranking system for the best players in the world.  It has a world championship tournament in which one player emerges as being a giant among giants.  The game has an infinite number of strategies and outcomes.  The strategies used in chess are so numerous that a recent search on Amazon for books on "Chess Strategy" came back with over 2,000 results.  No other board game is analyzed by chess lovers in magazines, books and even on You Tube channels.  The Chess Masters and Grand Masters and champions are scrutinized almost every time they play a game in a tournament.  It requires a player to be extremely focused on past moves and future moves during a game.  Chess crosses all economical, ethnic, and cultural boundaries.  It is played worldwide by more people than any other board game.  It is by far, in my opinion, the ultimate board game that trains the players how to think, how to observe, how to anticipate and how to know when it is over.  The higher a player climbs on the chess ladder, the less likely it is for a game to end in checkmate.  The very good players can see that they are in a position on the board that is not winnable and will resign rather than play to the checkmate end.  I feel that if a parent wants to teach their children how to think at an early age, introduce them to the game of chess.  They may love it, they may despise it, but they will come out of the experience knowing a little bit better how to think and how to apply those thoughts into action and that will lead to the ability to think in everyday life when facing all kinds of situations.

Chess.... the greatest board game ever ....  EVER.  I don't see it being replaced from that top spot anytime soon.