**A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice"Beguiling, mesmerizing, and utterly charming." —Stefan Fatsis, author of Word FreakA group biography of seven enduring and beloved games, and the story of why—and how—we play them.**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 imp...

“A modern, smart puzzle book, unlike anything I’ve seen before, whose math and logic challenges will stretch your brain in new ways.”—Will Shortz, New York Times crossword editor and NPR puzzlemasterThe most mind-bending puzzles on the internet appear weekly in Oliver Roeder’s “The Riddler” column. Presented by Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, this first-ever collection features the column’s most popular problems, along with six never-before-published puzzle...

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 ch...