‘Chess is work. Checkers is play.’
Twitter has just delivered to me this nugget of gaming wisdom. I appreciate that many people will disagree on exactly what consistutes ‘play’, but to me this statement sums up exactly why I do not enjoy many abstract strategy games: they simply seem too much like hard work.
Checkers is an abstract strategy game, of course, but one of a quite different order than chess. With checkers I feel that I am playing the game. With chess I feel as if the game is playing me.
