- Death Stacks
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Death Stacks is an abstract strategy board game for two players invented by Stephen Euin Cobb. Abstract strategy games have no random elements (such as dice) or hidden information (such as playing cards). Chess and Checkers are abstract strategy board games.
The Annual Death Stacks Tournament is held in Charlotte North Carolina each summer and is hosted by the science fiction convention ConCarolinas.
Death Stacks can be classified as a variant of the game Focus by Sid Sackson, published in A Gamut of Games.
Contents
History
The game was invented November 27, 2002.
The U.S. Copyright Office granted it Registered Copyright status on January 21, 2004.
The first tournament was held in 2004.
A new tournament category was awarded for the first time in 2007. The trophy for "Best Artificial Intelligence Implementation of Death Stacks" was awarded (in absentia) to an AI programmer nicknamed Freegoldbar for his two versions of the game (one which may be downloaded using one of the external links below, and one which may be played online using one of the external links below.) This category was created to encourage artificial intelligence programmers to tackle the problems of arithmetic logic inherent in this game. In a programming sense this task can be considered more complicated than checkers but less complicated than chess.
Human Championship Rankings
2004 tournament winners: 1st Place, Mark Furr; 2nd Place, Jeff Smith; 3rd Place, Eric Lowman. First prize was $250.00.
2005 tournament winners: 1st Place, Chris Jarrett; 2nd Place, Eric Lowman; 3rd Place, Bryan Reese; and tied for 4th place, Chris Ingram & Gerry Baygents. First prize was $250.00.
2006 tournament winners: 1st Place, Chris Jarrett; 2nd Place, Bryan Reese; 3rd Place, Eric Lowman. (A 4th Place trophy was also awarded.) First prize was $250.00.
2007 tournament winners: 1st Place, Chris Jarrett; 2nd Place, Eric Lowman; 3rd Place, Joey Wong. First prize was $250.00.
2008 tournament winners: 1st Place, Chris Jarrett; 2nd Place, Eric Lowman; 3rd Place, Aloysius Trey Krieger. First prize was $250.00.
2009 tournament winners: 1st Place, Chris Jarrett; 2nd Place, Aloysius Trey Krieger; 3rd Place, Eric Lowman. First prize was $250.00.
2010 tournament winners: 1st Place, Chris Jarrett; 2nd Place, Trey Krieger; 3rd Place, Ray Allen. First prize was $250.00.
2011 tournament winners: 1st Place, Chris Jarrett; 2nd Place, Trey Krieger; 3rd Place, Will Harris. First prize was $250.00.
Artificial Intelligence Championship Rankings
"Best Artificial Intelligence Implementation of Death Stacks"
2007 1st place: Freegoldbar for his two versions of the game (one which may be downloaded using one of the external links below, and one which may be played online using one of the external links below.)
External links
- How to play Death Stacks (Official Instructions)
- Photos from a Tournament
- ConCarolinas (Host of the Annual Death Stacks Tournament)
- An online Death Stacks game (requires browser with Adobe Flash Player 9)
- Freely downloadable Death Stacks game for home computers with MS .Net installed (open source, written in C#)
- Death Stacks at BoardGameGeek
Categories:- Abstract strategy games
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