Board Games with Brother

Pretty much every day that I'm home, I play some board games with my older brother.  Today we played three: Chess, Nine Men's Morris, and Backgammon.

Now, this is my brother:

...And here is our Chess board at the beginning of the game.  The board and pieces are obviously from two different sets; that white stone in the corner is standing in for a missing pawn.

Here is our Chess game partway through.  A total of five pieces have been captured.  My brother has captured four of mine, and I have captured one of his.

Here we are farther into the game.  More pieces have been captured.

And here is the conclusion of our Chess game.  My king is in "check mate."  This means that there is no place for my king to move where it will not be captured, and I therefore lose the game.

Close-up of the "check mate" area of the board.  (I played as green.)  You can see a green pawn, bishop, and king and an orange pawn, knight, bishop and queen on the board, as well as two captured orange pawns.

Here we are getting ready to play Nine Men's Morris.  Because my brother found this game so recently (he finds the games, learns them, then teaches them to me) we do not have a proper set yet.  We are therefore using a board drawn on a piece of paper and black and white Go stones for pieces.

Phase 1 of Nine Men's Morris consists of placing pieces.  In this picture, we are halfway through phase 1; nine pieces (five white--mine, four black--his) have been placed.

This picture shows the end of phase 1.  All the pieces have been placed.

I zoomed in for this shot, and went around the side of the board.  The three-in-a-row at the "top" (actually the side) form what is known as a "mill".  Every time a player forms a "mill", he or she gets to permanently remove an opposing checker.  Any checker is fair game as long as it is not in a "mill" itself.

This is the end of our Nine Men's Morris game.  My brother (playing as black) won because I (playing as white) could no longer move.

Here is our Backgammon game set up and ready for play.  I am playing red, and my brother is playing green.

Midway through the game.  This is right after one of my brother's turns.  I asked him to leave his dice on the board for the picture.

Later in the game, after one of my turns.  Likewise, I left my dice down.

This is a close up of my brother's "inner table," the quadrant of the board to which he must move all his checkers before "bearing off," or moving them off the board according to the roll of the dice.  I have two checkers back; I stayed behind to try to "hit" him and send him around again.

The very end of the game.  My brother, needless to say, has won by getting all his checkers off.

 

I hope you enjoyed these photos! Also--side note--yesterday I read the books of Amos (nine chapters) and Obadiah (one chapter).  Now I am in the middle of the book of Jonah, which has four chapters.