Has anyone here ever heard or played a game that was talked about on NPR yesterday?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

I just caught the tail end of the article and it sounded interesting. I have searched but can not find anything.

All I heard was something about an asymmetrical type of chess game possibly played in Scotland*

whereby one player has a group of 13 men who are surrounded by the opponent's group of 24 men.

*Not really sure how Scotland fits into all this but, Scotland was referenced.

This was on my way home from work yesterday on an NPR station.

Anybody ... ?

bell/ringing

[pinboy3niner]

1. Could it be Dunsany's Chess?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsany's_chess

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. not really sure - interesting - possibly -

but in that scenario the thirteen are not really surrounded are they ...

due to that description I envision more of a circular type of board with 13 pieces in the center surrounded by 24 pieces forming an
outer ring.


I keep entering key words into search on NPR and local affiliates web sites ... still nothing

[trof]

3. Circular chess

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_chess

[Tuesday Afternoon]

8. interesting but, one side is not surrounded by the other side which is how it was

described on the radio yesterday. I distinctly remember that because it sounded impossible to win and yet the man said that was the side that actually had an advantage and usually won the game. weird, eh?



Your fried eggs are just like how Granma made ours, the toast was made the same way, too

[HarveyDarkey]

4. Which NPR show?

NPR is very good at putting up their audio quickly, organized by topic. Just go to the page of the show, look at yesterday's show and listen.

http://www.npr.org/

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. I can't remember which show it was on. It was on about 3:30 edt yesterday. I searched that

link yesterday but, I will try it again. Thanks

on edit: which one does the geography quiz? I think that was the one.

[Chan790]

5. Sounds like a tafl game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games

Tafl games are a family of ancient Germanic and Celtic strategy board games played on a checkered or latticed board with two armies of uneven numbers, representing variants of an early Scandinavian board game called tafl or hnefatafl in contemporary literature.

Although the size of the board and the number of pieces varied, all games involved a distinctive 2:1 ratio of pieces, with the lesser side having a king-piece that started in the centre. The king's objective was to escape to (variously) the board's periphery or corners, while the greater force's objective was to capture him. There is also some controversy over whether some tafl games (i.e. Hnefatafl and Tawlbwrdd) may have employed dice.[1] Tafl spread everywhere the Vikings traveled, including Iceland, Britain, Ireland, and Lapland.[2] Versions of Tafl, comprising Hnefatafl, Alea Evangelii, Tawlbwrdd (Wales), Brandubh, Ard Ri and Tablut, were played across much of Northern Europe from earlier than 400 AD until it was supplanted by chess in the 12th century.[3]

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. this looks a lot like how I envisioned it in my mind from the description on the radio.

will have to read and research more to find out for sure. thanks for the info and the links.

[cbayer]

9. I heard the story, but can't remember what it was called.

The game is one of strategy and espionage. It is being used by CIA operatives (I think) to learn how to better track and stop individuals or groups that they want to target.

It's more like a board game than chess.

There is an official play of the game in the Shetland Islands.

The story was on "The World", I believe and the location was the "Guess where we are" game that they play every day.

I would look it up for you, but my connection is really slow for opening things like NPR.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

10. thanks, cbayer !! do you mean: The World Cafe .... ?

I am searching their internal database with no luck

the key words are not returning anything ...

are you sure it was the CIA mentioned?

sounds like you heard a bit more the article than I did ...

[Metatron]

11. The show was PRI's The World

http://www.theworld.org/

[marzipanni]

13. Narrowing it down a little further...you can listen to it again here-

http://www.theworld.org/2013/08/hnefatafl/

[cbayer]

14. No. The program is called "The World"

And the piece about this is called geo-quiz

[cbayer]

15. Oops! Did not see that you had already gotten the link.

[rug]

12. Hnefatafl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hnefatafl