Whoever said Board Games are not athletic?
Over the course of four weekends, I built a 12 foot by 12 foot Backgammon Court in my backyard. The board utilizes three different colors of gravel for the surface and points, the checkers are 175 gram Ultimate class Frisbees, the dice are four inch foam dice, the dice cups are blue and white five gallon buckets and the Doubling Cube is made out of a cardboard box.
Inspiration for the project came from a walking tour in Zurich, Switzerland. We came
across a group of men (and a pigeon) playing Chess on a life sized chessboard, and after a short period of
percolation, the idea came to us. "Wouldn't it be cool to make a large scale Backgammon board in our backyard!" Once the synapses were formed, I never looked back.
I've been a serious Backgammon player for the last seven years, playing occasionally in American Backgammon Tour tournaments and locally as well as online. Backgammon is an excellent game involving the skill of the play with the luck of the dice. It can be a highly technical game involving over-the-board math to estimate winning chance probabilities. It's frequently exciting with turn-on-a-dime game changing plays. It's a social game, and I've met many excellent people along the way.
Being a lover of organization and plans, I decided to experiment with a Mind Map for the construction project. In my experience, Mind Maps are less suited for step-by-step project plans, but I was pleasantly surprised with how this one came out, and I ended up following it exactly.
It was fun to watch the board materialize over the course of each work session.
As a crowning touch, we felt a Mascot was in order. My wife Mary, who is a potter,
made a fired clay Badger with backgammon dice cups (and dice) who umpires the games.
Additional Resources
Backgammon:
Chicago Point Backgammon Links
Frisbees, Dice and Dice Cups:
Gravel, Sand and Paving Edgers:
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