If I had to define the theme of this summer, it’s been abstract gaming. I was looking for something to do with my e-mail as I was constantly connected at work. Well, I found PBEM games.

I’ve played many games now on Richard’s PBeM Server. The interface is quite nice and the games have been fun. It’s just hard to get the right balance… There’s the one guy, who responded very fast while he was awake, so from eight when I came to work until about ten, I would be playing my moves constantly. Then there’s these once a week -players.

Most people never say a word, but I’ve had some conversations too. That’s always nice, no-nonsense "won’t say a word" gaming is a bit boring. But in the other hand, it’s less trouble, you can play your moves quite quickly.

I’ve played many different games. Soccolot, Phutball, Y, Hexade, Hexbo, Tanbo, Gipf, Tamsk have all been minor interests. Most of these I didn’t like much… Tamsk is nice, but probably much better offline.

But then are The Two. Zèrtz and Go. I’ve played about 30-40 games of Zèrtz and perhaps ten games of Go. I’ve had good opponents in both. Mike, a friendly high-school teacher and one of his students, Shawn, have both played many games of Zèrtz with me while Chris has been a wonderful tutor when I’ve taken my first steps towards understanding Go (a goal for a lifetime).

There are lots of different games available on the server (standard games like Chess, different Asian variations of it, Backgammon, some card games, Go, Othello, Scramble, many many games) to try out. You can probably find opponents for most of them — there’s a mailing list of the users where you can request opponents.