Tom Braunlich | |
|---|---|
 Braunlich in 2016 | |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Customizable card game designer |
| Notable work | Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game Star Wars Customizable Card Game |
Tom Braunlich is an American customizable card game (CCG) designer.
Thomas Braunlich, son of Frank H. Braunlich Jr. and Phyllis Braunlich, is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a journalism graduate. [1] [2] Braunlich and Rollie Tesh were world champions of Pente , a game originally published by Parker Brothers, and later by Decipher. [3] In 1993, Braunlich and Tesh approached Decipher with their idea for a licensed collectible card game, the result of which they published as Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game (1994). [3] [4] [5]
Tom Braunlich worked for Decipher. He helped create the Star Wars Customizable Card Game which was Decipher's most monetarily successful CCG and their second-most successful game in terms of longevity.
Braunlich is also a writer on games, including Pente [2] and chess, [6] [7] and organizer of chess tournaments. [8] [9] Braunlich holds a USCF Life Master rating in chess. [10] On numerous occasions Braunlich has served as the director for the Jerry Spann Memorial Tournament, also known as the Oklahoma Open tournament. [11]
Braunlich is also the author of Weather Knight: A World War II Biography of Frank H. Braunlich Jr. [12]
Pente is an abstract strategy board game for two or more players, created in 1977 by Gary Gabrel. A member of the m,n,k game family, Pente stands out for its custodial capture mechanic, which allows players to "sandwich" pairs of stones and capture them by flanking them on either side. This changes the overall tactical assessments players face when compared to pure placement m,n,k games such as Gomoku.
Star Wars: Customizable Card Game (SW:CCG) is an out-of-print customizable card game based on the Star Wars fictional universe. It was created by Decipher, Inc., which also produced the Star Trek Customizable Card Game and The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game. The game was produced from December 1995 until December 2001. Since 2002, the game has been maintained by the Star Wars CCG Players Committee, with new virtual cards being released every few months and the capability to play both in person and online.
The Star Trek Customizable Card Game is an out-of-print collectible card game based on the Star Trek universe. The name is commonly abbreviated as STCCG or ST:CCG. It was first introduced in 1994 by Decipher, Inc., under the name Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game. The game now has two distinct editions, though both forms of the game have many common elements.
Decipher, Inc. is an American gaming company headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, US. The company began with three puzzles marketed as "Decipher," subsequently marketing party games and Pente sets. After 1994, Decipher produced collectible card and role-playing games — including their longest-running product, How to Host a Murder Mystery series. Other popular works have included many different card games. Since 2002, Decipher has released two licensed role-playing games: Star Trek RPG and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.
William Goichberg is a chess master and chess tournament organizer and director. He founded the Continental Chess Association (CCA), which runs the annual World Open and other large tournaments. He is also a former president of the United States Chess Federation (USCF).
Benjamin Philip Finegold is an American chess grandmaster and YouTuber/Twitch streamer. He had previously been nicknamed the "strongest International Master in the United States" until receiving his Grandmaster (GM) title in 2009.
Tal Shaked is an American chess grandmaster who is best known for winning the World Junior Championship in 1997.
Battlestar Galactica Collectible Card Game is an out-of-print collectible card game based on the Battlestar Galactica science fiction media franchise. The game, published by WizKids, saw first release in May 2006 and was officially canceled in March 2007.
Young Jedi Collectible Card Game is an out-of-print collectible card game published by Decipher, Inc. that was released in May 1999. It was based on the events and characters of the movie The Phantom Menace in the Star Wars universe. Seven expansions were released before the game was discontinued in September 2001.
Kangugi "K. K." Karanja is an American chess player and former chess prodigy. He became a US Chess Federation Candidate Master at the age of 10.
Sergey Kudrin is a Soviet-American chess Grandmaster.
Susan Polgar is a Hungarian-American chess grandmaster. Polgár was Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 to 1999. On FIDE's Elo rating system list of July 1984, at the age of 15, she became the top-ranked female chess player in the world. In 1991, she became the third woman to be awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE. She won eleven medals at the Women's Chess Olympiad.
A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards. It was introduced with Magic: The Gathering in 1993.
A digital collectible card game (DCCG) or online collectible card game (OCCG) is a computer or video game that emulates collectible card games (CCG) and is typically played online or occasionally as a standalone video game. Many DCCGs are types of digital tabletop games and follow traditional card game-style rules, while some DCCGs use alternatives for cards and gameboards, such as icons, dice and avatars. Originally, DCCGs started out as replications of a CCG's physical counterpart, but many DCCGs have foregone a physical version and exclusively release as a video game, such as with Hearthstone.
Star Trek: The Card Game is an out-of-print collectible card game by Fleer and Skybox based on the original Star Trek series. The game was designed by Mag Force 7. The original set had 306 cards and was first released in June 1996.
Jerry Garland Spann was an American chess administrator and businessman. He served as president of the United States Chess Federation (USCF) from 1957 to 1960 and also served as a vice-president of FIDE. He is credited with saving the USCF from bankruptcy. The Jerry Spann Memorial Tournament is held in Oklahoma each year in his honor.
James Kester Olaf Svendsen was an American educator, scholar, author, and chess administrator. In 1938 he was awarded a PhD in English from the University of North Carolina. That credential allowed him to take a teaching position at the College of Charleston until 1940 when he relocated to Norman, Oklahoma, to join the University of Oklahoma (OU) faculty as an associate English professor. In 1952 Svendsen was awarded a fellowship in English literature by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Frank Kimball Berry was an American chess administrator with the rank of International Arbiter and Organizer. He was also a magician, historian, and banker from Stillwater, Oklahoma. He was best known for sponsoring two U.S. Chess Championships (2007-8) and as one of just a few American FIDE International Arbiters. He organized and directed chess tournaments of all sizes for more than 55 years. His diverse career included military service as a paratrooper from 1966 through 1968 with the 101st Airborne Division. He was involved in banking as a credit manager with 3M Financial and was a major stockholder in Southwest Bancorp. He was a performing member at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles and Arbiter at the GM Eduard Gufeld Chess Club in Hollywood when he lived in California from 1977 to 2002.
Walter Harris is an American chess player.