About a week or so ago I got together for a poker game with some old high school buddies. Prior to the game I was explaining Amazons to one of my friends, since he wasn't familiar with the game and since I've been playing it a lot lately. He wanted to give it a try… be we didn't have a 10x10 board.

I suppose we could have sketched a small board on a piece of paper or looked for a piece of cardboard and a marker to create a board, but I came up with what I thought was a neat solution… use poker chips, which were sitting right there on the table.

I always keep a chess set in my car, and four pawns were used as the pieces.

I didn't take a picture of it that evening, but I recreated what it looked like yesterday, and snapped a photo. It looked about identical to this:

http://www.edcollins.com/amazons-with-chips.jpg

I submitted the image to Boardgame Geek and they already saw fit to use it in their section on Amazons.

Anyway, I thought it was kinda of a neat idea so I'd thought I'd share. Note: I prefer alternating colors for the squares, as it helps me to see the diagonals. The arrows were represented by not just one chip, but four, which gave them much more depth, and helped to indicate that square was now a “blocker.”

Another idea is that when a square is hit by an arrow, the chip disappears. To me, that jibes well with the logic of the game: Once hit, the square is no longer part of the game, and therefore has no chip.

I've made a proper board with tournament sized chess queens (I ordered 2 chess sets with extra queens in each), 92 red poker chips (yes, I ordered exactly 92) and the grid is 58 cm x 58 cm on 2 mm cardboard. The picture here is of poor quality but you get the idea.

I've made a proper board with tournament sized chess queens (I ordered 2 chess sets with extra queens in each), 92 red poker chips (yes, I ordered exactly 92) and the grid is 58 cm x 58 cm on 2 mm cardboard. The picture here is of poor quality but you get the idea.

I once played amazons with klaashaas using coins and othello discs as queens. I don't recommend this to anybody though.

Here is a better picture.

The position is from the deciding game of one of the previous championships.

That is a much better picture than the one you had before. Thanks for sharing.

Ideally, the Queens should be just a little shorter, I think. In relation to the board size, I think they are a little tall.

I think Dvd Avins mentioned his square removal idea once before. (If he didn't than someone else did. It's strangely familiar.) With a board like isometry's it's not possible to do that, but with my “poker chip” board, or with any computerized software game/board, that idea would work. I'll have to give that a try someday. I think it might be kinda neat.