Crokinole is a disk-flicking dexterity board game, possibly of Canadian origin, similar to the games of pitchnut, carrom, and pichenotte, with elements of shuffleboard and curling reduced to table-top size. Players take turns shooting discs across the circular playing surface, trying to land their discs in the higher-scoring regions of the board, particularly the recessed centre hole of 20 points, while also attempting to knock opposing discs off the board, and into the 'ditch'. In crokinole, the shooting is generally towards the centre of the board, unlike carroms and pitchnut, where the shooting is towards the four outer corner pockets, as in pool. Crokinole is also played using cue sticks, and there is a special category for cue stick participants at the World Crokinole Championships in Tavistock, Ontario, Canada.
Sternhalma, commonly known as Chinese checkers or Chinese chequers, is a strategy board game of German origin that can be played by two, three, four, or six people, playing individually or with partners. The game is a modern and simplified variation of the game Halma.
Eight-ball is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls. The object balls include seven solid-colored balls numbered 1 through 7, seven striped balls numbered 9 through 15, and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a break shot, a player is assigned either the group of solid or striped balls once they have legally pocketed a ball from that group. The object of the game is to legally pocket the 8-ball in a "called" pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player's assigned group have been cleared from the table.
Stratego is a strategy board game for two players on a board of 10×10 squares. Each player controls 40 pieces representing individual officer and soldier ranks in an army. The pieces have Napoleonic insignia. The objective of the game is to either find and capture the opponent's Flag or to capture so many enemy pieces that the opponent cannot make any further moves. Stratego has simple enough rules for young children to play but a depth of strategy that is also appealing to adults.
Trouble is a board game in which players compete to be the first to send four pieces all the way around a board. It is based on a traditional game called "Frustration" played on a wooden board with indentations for marble playing pieces and rules similar to Parcheesi. Pieces are moved according to the roll of a die using a contained device called a "Pop-O-Matic".
Connect Four is a game in which the players choose a color and then take turns dropping colored tokens into a six-row, seven-column vertically suspended grid. The pieces fall straight down, occupying the lowest available space within the column. The objective of the game is to be the first to form a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line of four of one's own tokens. It is therefore a type of M,n,k-game with restricted piece placement. Connect Four is a solved game. The first player can always win by playing the right moves.
Carrom is a tabletop game of Indian origin in which players flick discs, attempting to knock them to the corners of the board. The game is very popular in the Indian subcontinent, and is known by various names in different languages. In South Asia, many clubs and cafés hold regular tournaments. Carrom is commonly played by families, including children, and at social functions. Different standards and rules exist in different areas. It became very popular in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth during the early 20th century.
Golf billiards is a pocket billiards game usually played for money. Unlike the majority of such games, it allows more than two people to play without compromises or rule changes. The game borrows from the outdoor game of golf, which is historically related to the cue sports. It is usually played on 10-foot or 12-foot snooker tables as their size and structure are more appropriate. In 2006 the Billiard Congress of America commented it was more popular than snooker in the United States.
Shuffleboard is a game in which players use cues to push weighted discs, sending them gliding down a narrow court, with the purpose of having them come to rest within a marked scoring area. As a more generic term, it refers to the family of shuffleboard-variant games as a whole.
Chapayev is a board game, a hybrid of checkers (draughts) and gamepiece-impact games like carrom, novuss, and pichenotte, giving it gameplay aspects in common with both billiards and table shuffleboard on a smaller scale, as well as some checkers strategy. It is played throughout the territory of the former USSR. The aim is to knock the opponent's pieces off the board. The game is named after the Russian Civil War hero, Vasily Chapayev.
Mensch ärgere Dich nicht is a German board game, developed by Josef Friedrich Schmidt in 1907/1908. Some 70 million copies have been sold since its introduction in 1914 and it is played in many European countries.
Novuss is a two-player game of physical skill which is closely related to carrom and pocket billiards. Novuss originates from Estonia and Latvia, where it is a national sport. The board is approximately 100 centimetres (39 in) square, typically made of wood, has pockets in each corner, and lines marked on the surface. The board is usually placed on a stand, but may be placed on a barrel or other surface that allows the pockets to hang down properly. It uses small discs instead of balls, and each player has a small puck instead of the cue ball used in other cue sports. Players use a small cue stick to propel their pucks into their colored object discs, knocking them into the pockets. The winner is the first one to sink all eight of their object discs.
Skully is a children's game played on the streets of New York City and other urban areas. Sketched on the street usually in chalk, a skully board allows a game for two to six players. A sidewalk is sometimes used, offering greater protection from vehicular traffic; however, the asphalt on a typical city street is smoother and provides better game play than a bumpy concrete sidewalk.
The following is a glossary of traditional English-language terms used in the three overarching cue sports disciplines: carom billiards referring to the various carom games played on a billiard table without pockets; pool, which denotes a host of games played on a table with six pockets; and snooker, played on a large pocket table, and which has a sport culture unto itself distinct from pool. There are also games such as English billiards that include aspects of multiple disciplines.
Perfection is a game originally produced by the Pennsylvania company Reed Toys and then by the Milton Bradley company. The object is to put all the pieces into matching holes on the board before the time limit runs out. When time runs out, the board springs up, causing many, if not all, of the pieces to fly out. In the most common version, there are 25 pieces to be placed into a 5×5 grid within 60 seconds.
Pichenotte refers to a family of several disk-flicking games, mostly French Canadian in origin, including crokinole, pitchnut, and North American carrom, which may sometimes be played with small cue sticks. Pichenotte is a Canadian French word meaning 'flick', which is derived from the European French word pichenette, also meaning 'flick'. These folk games are in the public domain, and are not subject to copyright like a commercial board game. Nor are they patented games. However, the names Pichenotte and Pitchnut are registered trademarks in the United States. The game community site Knipsbrat.com states that, like the German name Knipsbrat ('flicking-board'), "pichenotte is another name for crokinole" The Canadian game board collection at the Quebec Museum of Civilization in Quebec City includes both the square carrom-type board and the round crokinole-type game Crokinole is also called pichenotte throughout much of North America. Modern-day tournaments have been held as far apart as Tavistock, Ontario, and Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Shagai, chükö, asyk/ashyk/oshuq, gachuha refers to the astragalus of the ankle of a sheep or goat. The bones are collected and used for traditional games and fortune-telling throughout Central Asia, and games involving the ankle bones may also be referred to by the name of the bones. They may be painted bright colours. Such bones have been used throughout history, and are thought to be the first forms of dice. In English language sources, shagai may be referred to as "ankle bones", and playing with shagai is sometimes called ankle bone shooting.
Tabletop football is a class of tabletop game simulating mainly association football, but also either of the codes of rugby, or some other form of football such as American football or Australian rules football. The games employ miniature figures of players on a bounded playing board or table that looks like a football pitch (field).
