Best Board Games in the UK

If you are spending the weekend with your friends, try to play scrabble. This game can expand your vocabulary, enhance your spelling, and make you think of strategies that will enable you to score a lot of points.

What is Scrabble?

It is a classic word game that is consists of board and tiles. The game was invented by Alfred Musher Butts. The tiles consist of letters with corresponding points on them. The points on each letter were worked out using books and newspapers as references. Letters that are rarely used get more points also the board consists of 15×15 squares. 2 to 4 people can play the game. Each letter is printed on a tile that can be used to assemble words.

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How to Play Scrabble?

You should have an official scrabble board, tiles, and racks. So the game starts with each player getting one tile from a bag. The player with the closest letter to the beginning of the alphabet begins first. The players can decide if they want to take turns in a clockwise or a counterclockwise direction. Each letter corresponds to a number. Each player gets seven tiles. The first player gets double points, and he or she can use all seven letters in one go. The next player puts another word. The words should include a letter that is part of the first word. It is allowed to build 2 or more words by touching more than two tiles from the other players. The other words should be valid. Especially relevant is that they should be found in the dictionary.

Board and Letter Scores

The first player should initially put his or her words in the middle part of the board. The star in the middle represents a premium board square. It multiplies score by 2x. You can find words such as a double word, double letter,  triple words and triple letters on the board. So you can get an advantage by using all the tiles on your rack. Doing this can give you an additional of 50 points. There are also blank tiles which you can use to substitute for letters.

Scrabble Trivia

The highest point in a single scrabble turn was 365. The word used was QUIXOTRY. It was put in a triple word score on the board. Furthermore, there are currently 29 languages used in Scrabble. The original name was Lexico. There are official tournaments in other countries which make the game complicated. You can make the right longest word by creating OXYPHENBUTAZONE. It is a kind of non – steroidal anti-inflammatory drug.

Tips for Playing Scrabble

So, learn how to play a lot of two-letter words. These words contain high-value letters. You won’t get stuck by letters that are infrequently occurring in the dictionary. You should learn to letter “s” on existing words. Add suffixes such as “er” or “ed” if possible. Watch out for possible bingos or landing triple word tiles. Be careful with the letter Q because it is seldom used. Therefore these tips can get you a lot of points and help you win the game. Finally, to find all of my new blog articles at Best Board Games UK.

Chess history goes back decades to the ages. Everyone has heard about chess, and from the ancients playing with rock, it has evolved into some countries holding the most prominent chess tournaments.
For some, it’s a hobby to play with a friend some take it so seriously then competes and train to be the best.Chess is well known and played by millions but where it originated causes nothing but disagreements. It is a highly debatable subject. With so many stories, legends and gossip trails it starts and ends as a dispute.

It is thought to be a game that was invented by several brainy people as the game is just too complicated for one human brain to think of. The first champion of chess was Wilhelm Steinitz in 1886. The game is about domination and the best decision-making skills to be a champion.

Where did chess originate?

We can trace back the chess history to about 1500 years ago, but this is not certain it could go back even further it’s just uncertain. It is said the earliest prototype originated in India roughly before the 6th century before Christ. Some believe it was started in China then India than from there ended up at Persia. Once the Arabs had taken over Persia, Chess was popular among the Muslims later gained popularity in southern Europe.

It was in Europe that it advanced it is now current state around the time of the 15^th century.In the 15^th century chess was more a quick, tactical movement game rather than the extended plan each move game.
When it hit the 19^thcentury chess tournaments began. In 1886 the first world championship was held.
The 20^th century brought us the creation of the world chess federation now we have evolved with online chess gaming.

How has the game changed?

The famous chess game dating so far back still has the same features as the modern game of chess. The game then was played on an eight by eight squares the same as ours today. The difference there is our board is checkered the old boards were not.

Some identities of the character pieces are different although some people still prefer to play with the simple ancient designed pieces.The strategy is the same between the two, but there weren’t the dominant moves like the pawns double move, the powerful queen and the high angle from the bishop.
Then there is the queen. However, no woman was allowed on the battlefield.

There was the king’s advisor. He was however weak and could only move one square at a time in a diagonal direction. He was though used to guard the king piece from an attack.Chess is one of the most loved board games but like most things have changed over the times. We hope that more information can help us regarding the history of chess will come to the surface. To see what else we can discover about this historical and well-respected game of chess

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Regarded by many as the most excellent game consisting of cards, Bridge is the most challenging, but the enjoyable game you’ll ever play in your life! This article is made for people who are complete newbies to the game, so if you’re one, then you’ve come to the right place! The bridge is a pretty complicated card game if you compare them to others like solitaire, but once you learn how to play it, it becomes a piece of cake! So, without any further ado, let’s start!

Basics of the game:

• The game itself is divided into two parts, the bidding, and the play. Let’s look at the game first since it directly affects everything you need to know about bidding.
• First off, you’ll need at least four players, as the game is played in teams of two. Each opponent and his teammate sit opposite to each other, not together.
• There are 52 total cards in the entire deck, which essentially means that each player will get 13 cards. The cards are distributed in a clockwise direction, from the dealer to the left of him/her.
• There’s a total of four suits with different rarities, with spades being the highest, then hearts, then diamonds, and then finally clubs on the bottom of the list. The ranking only affects bidding, not the play.
• This is optional, but you can name only one suit as trump. Whether It be clubs or hearts, the trump will then be the highest suit, beating spades.
• The cards of each suit are also ranked in the following order: Ace, King, Queen, Joker, and then the numbers 10 to 2. The Ace is the highest and two is the lowest.

The play:

The primary objective in Bridge is to win tricks with your teammate. What is a method? A trick consists of a total of four cards, one from each player.So, since each player has 13 cards, that means that you’ll have to play 13 tricks per game. There are a few rules for every trick though.

• The first rule is that the very first card that is played is called the lead, you’ll need to play a card belonging to the same suit as the lead card.
• The second rule is that if you don’t have the same suit’s card, you may play a card from any other suit as well.

Now, let’s look at the rules for determining the winner:

• If all the cards are of the same suit, the highest card of that suit wins. For example, if the cards are 8, King, 5 and Ace, then the ace wins.
• However, if there is a trump suit involved, the highest card of the trump suit wins.

The bidding:

This one is straightforward. Bidding is the act done before the play. In the bidding, you decide the trump suit, how many tricks will count as the win, and the lead.

That’s it for the basics of Bridge. This game is a tough one, so go out, find some friends and play to your heart’s content!

The ancient Chinese board-game GO is a fascinating and game involving a general strategy for two players. The goal of the game is to secure more territory than the one you are playing with using the playing pieces called ‘stones’. It is one of the oldest board games being almost 2,500 years old. It has relatively simple rules, but it is more complex and tactical than chess, because of the more prominent board and more pieces. There are two players who get either white or black pieces. If you are new to GO, this article will be of great help to you as it will guide you on its rules, basics and how to play! Be sure to read thoroughly and have fun!

Some necessary things to know:

Before we move to its basic rules, some things you’ll need to know are:

• GO is a game for two players.
• To play GO, you’ll need to have black & white pieces or stones and a board with lines/squares.
• The board will be filled up during the game. It is empty at the start.
• You will need to take turns with your partner to place the stones. One stone will be placed per turn.
• Once you place a stone on the board, you can’t change your move or take it back.
• The player in possession of the black stones gets to move first.
• Stones will always be placed on the intersections of the lines, not the squares.
• You can put your stones anywhere across these intersections.

Basic Rules and how to play:

The two parties take turns to place the stones on the intersecting lines, one by one on the grid of the GO board. The grid is based upon 19×19 lines, and one cannot take back a stone once it is placed. The vertical and horizontal placing of stones adjacently forms a colour chain, and this chain cannot be divided, hence creating a larger stone. These chains can be enlarged by placing more stones. Any vacant point occurring sideways to a stone is called liberty. Stones that are present in chains will share their rights. To remain on the board, one liberty must be possessed by the chain. If not so, it is to be captured and put away from the board. Any stone that is surrounded by the opposing party is said to be captured and removed from the board.

Scoring:

There are two types of scoring methods used and usually both give the same results. They are:

• Area scoring
• Territory scoring

In Area scoring, a player’s score is measured by the number of stones on the board of the colour they’re playing with along with the number of empty intersections across the player’s pieces.

In Territory scoring, both parties retain the opposing parties captured stones called ‘prisoners’ Furthermore, any dead stones present towards the end of a match are also captured. Thus the final score is calculated by the number of prisoners in one’s possession plus the number of empty intersections across the player’s stones.

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A board game that is not only fun but also improves your agility, thinking ability, cognitive functions and smartness – Yes! We are talking about chess. Chess is a complicated game with compelling, complex strategic ways and tactics that need to be used to win.

No matter how old you are, it’s never late to play a game of chess or to learn it if you don’t know how to. The most famous board game in the world has some simple rules on which the game is based, which will be thoroughly explained in this article. Read below and learn all about this fun game easily!

The Chess pieces and their arrangement

Starting from the basics, each player gets 16 pieces to play with. The chess pieces are six types. The articles include:

• One King piece
• One Queen piece
• 2 Bishops pieces
• Two Rook pieces
• 2 Knight pieces
• 8 Pawns

Each person gets these as either black or white pieces. The chess board contains 64 squares, half of which are white and the other half are black. The pieces are arranged from the player’s point of view, i.e. each one’s left to right. The order of arrangement is as follows:

Rook, Knight, Bishop, King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook in the first row and all the eight pawns are arranged in the second row.

How to move chess pieces

After the arrangement comes to the movement. Pawns can move only forward, either 1 or 2 squares. On reaching the other end of the chessboard, the pawn gets promotion as a higher piece. Rooks can move either forward, backward or sideways in a straight line. Knights can ‘jump’ off unlike others and cannot be blocked. The bishop is accustomed to diagonal movement in each or any desired direction. The queen is to move in straight and diagonal lines either sideways, backward or forward. The king can go in any place but only one square only each time. It cannot be moved to any position that the opponent is attacking.

Checkmating and stalemating

The only way you can win a match in chess is to put the opponent’s king under “checkmate”. Checkmate is when the king is in check by the opponent’s piece which can neither be blocked nor captured, and the king is in check cannot move anywhere.

“Stalemate” is a tie to put it simply. When all the spaces are in under attack around the king, but the king is not under checkmate, blocking the path of the king, it is referred to as “stalemate”. It is a condition achieved when there is no room for the player to move or any legal tactics for an opponent to use.

In conclusion, there are uncountable ways to win in a game of chess, and the best thing about it is the numerous tactics and strategies that can be used to play your pieces. Piece value, Board control, and Pawn promotion are some of the basic strategies that are used by countless others. So, go ahead, grab a board and play and maybe make your very own approach too while you’re having fun with it!