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Title details for Seven Games by Oliver Roeder - Available

Seven Games

A Human History

by Oliver Roeder
William Sarris
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
Checkers, backgammon, chess, and Go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last Go champion of imperial Japan; and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white Go stones. Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games-and for us.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 25, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781696607421
      • File size: 264895 KB
      • Duration: 09:11:51

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      An echo of adolescent enthusiasm underlies William Sarris's lively narration--a fitting tone for this history of the world's favorite and most enduring games. Checkers, backgammon, chess, Go, poker, Scrabble, bridge--even before you've finished the first chapter and heard all the possible opening moves in a checkers match, you realize that these are no passing adolescent diversions. Games for many are lifelong disciplines, and each challenges the highest capacities of the human brain. Sarris recounts what is aptly subtitled "a human history." But often here, the most formidable opponent is a computer. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      June 1, 2022

      Though short on ancient history and favoring the last 100 years and interrelation of games and computer science, this audio summarizes the gaming impulse, or humans' "lusory mind" back into antiquity and across cultures. Relating his own Scrabble and poker tournament experiences, Roeder explains the enduring attraction of games that are now far more competently played by computers, and for these personal vignettes the narration approaches playfully energetic. William Sarris's reading is otherwise plainspoken, as though resignedly delivering bad news: not just Scrabble and poker, but six of the seven games profiled have passed from strictly human activities to a shared arena in which trained programs inevitably dominate. Going from most to fewest real-life skills exercised, Roeder argues that checkers, chess, Go, backgammon, and, finally, poker and Scrabble will one day be "solved" (if they haven't been already) or a mathematical proof of the most optimal moves achieved. Yet we continue to play these solvable games while another, contract bridge, dependent on subtle communication, has resisted digital conversion but is dying out with its current generation of players. VERDICT This melancholy yet intriguing assessment of parlor games' role in shaping our past and AI's future is an optional audio purchase.--Lauren Kage

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 8, 2021
      With entertaining cultural profiles of the games of checkers, chess, go, Scrabble, backgammon, poker, and bridge, journalist Roeder (The Riddler) delivers a splashy narrative that successfully argues that games, more than just being forms of entertainment, help individuals develop strategies for navigating daily life. “Learning a game’s intricacies and playing that game with others binds us with other humans, shaping our culture and, indeed, our perspective on the ‘real’ world,” he asserts. Chess, for instance, offers players a chance to consider lengthy tactical combinations and resolve complex relationships among the pieces on the board. Legend has it, Roeder writes, that go was invented by a Chinese emperor 4,000 years ago to discipline his “unruly son.” In poker, the player must surrender to not knowing what lies in their opponents’ hands, much as they have to in real life, “where there is often a whole host of things we would like to know but that we do not: consider courtship, negotiations, warfare.” To further enrich his exploration, he weaves in luminous sketches of other fierce competitors, such as one “technochratic Scrabble sage” who advises other nationally ranked players and helped Roeder prepare for the 2019 North American Scrabble Championship. This humanistic look at some of the most popular games in history will have readers hooked.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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