Joli Quentin Kansil

Infobox Person
name = Joli Quentin Kansil


image_size = 250px
caption = Game Inventor Joli Quentin Kansil deletable image-caption
birth_date = birth date|1943|1|27|mf=y
birth_place = Manhattan
occupations = Game inventor, Writer, Teacher
children = Melanie Quintana Kansil (b. 1976)
Zane Quincy Kansil (b. 1992)
Xantia Que Kansil (b. 2002)

Joli Quentin Kansil is the inventor of 36 card games, word games, board games, and dice games, and the author of five books. He was also a teacher in Hawaii, Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore. Bridgette, a two-player bridge game, is his most famous game.

Early years

Kansil was born in Manhattan and lived much of his childhood at the Jersey Shore, graduating Asbury Park High School in 1960 and Rutgers University in 1964. His first job was as personal assistant to Albert Hodges Morehead, a writer, lexicographer, and the first bridge editor of The New York Times. Morehead became Kansil’s mentor and the first noted bridge player to endorse Kansil’s two-player bridge game, Bridgette, which he invented while in high school. A year before Morehead died, Kansil moved to Mexico City, where he earned an MA degree in Latin American history from la Universidad de las Americas. After Mexico, Joli Quentin Kansil moved to Honolulu, Hawaii and worked as a full-time English teacher at Punahou School. During these years, Joli Quentin Kansil began his many travels to Central America, the Caribbean, South Pacific, South East Asia, and other places including Mongolia, Wallis and Futuna Islands, Antarctica and Greenland. In all, he has been to 230 countries and colonies.

Games career

In 1969, Kansil founded Gamut of Games, Inc., which produced and distributed various games that he and his associate, Philip Orbanes, designed. Waldemar Von Zedtwitz, who played over 30,000 deals of Bridgette and was the former business partner of Albert Hodges Morehead, contributed the funds needed to start Gamut of Games, Inc. (which later evolved into Xanadu Leisure, Ltd.). Some of the other games of Kansil that were published by these two companies included My Word (also known as Zig-Zag), Marrakesh, Itinerary, Krakatoa, Knock-on-Word, Montage, and Indochine — 2000.

Through his invention of Bridgette, Kansil met many notable bridge players, including Oswald Jacoby, who called Joli Quentin Kansil 'the best combination game inventor/game player in the world' [speech to Hawaii Backgammon Club, December 6, 1980] . Kansil was honored as Game Inventor of the Year in 1992 at the annual Game Fair in Essen, Germany, and earlier, in 1986, Bridgette was added to GAMES Magazine's Hall of Fame [Games Magazine November 1986 or any November issue since then] . In 1973, Kansil co-founded the Hawaii Backgammon Club, and he promoted this game by organizing many tournaments. He won the Hawaii State Backgammon Championships twice (1973, 2000), and he placed in the top 16 bracket in Macau (1977), Monte Carlo (1979), St. Moritz, Switzerland (1986) and Tokyo, Japan (also 1986).

Author

Kansil is the author of The Backgammon Quiz Book (Playboy Press, 1979), and he is the editor of the popular Official Rules of Card Games (U. S. Playing Card Co., 1999). His MA thesis on John Quincy Adams was published as a small book in 1983. In 2008, he completed a manuscript for a book that covers a wide range of topics, notably the origin of the Universe and life on Earth, the conflict between science and religion, the 10 greatest human accomplishments, contentment, and forecasts for the future.

In the 1970s, Kansil wrote many crossword puzzles for The New York Times, and he was the backgammon editor for "Games Magazine" (1978 to 1983). A member of the Explorers Club, he was the journalist on the Zancudo-Cocha expedition in 1987, and he made a rare visit to Pitcairn Island in the South Seas that same year. He wrote articles about both trips for the Explorers Club Journal magazine.

Later years

Kansil has three children and is currently residing in Makati, a prominent city near Manila, in the Philippines, where he is a writer and frequent tournament bridge player. Besides his work in the field of games, he was active as a member of the board of directors of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) for 17 years, and he has designed a modernized spelling system and a reform calendar (see ‘Other Projects’ at: [www.indochinegame.com] )