Seven Games: A Human History -- Virtual Event on Zoom
with author Oliver Roeder in conversation with Judit Sztaray, General Manager of Youth Outreach and Events, and Paul Whitehead, Chess Coordinator

This program is virtual, on Zoom

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 delightful 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 champion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism”; and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white Go stones.

Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language itself.

Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games—and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.

Oliver Roeder has been a senior writer at FiveThirtyEight and editor of The Riddler, a collection of the site’s math puzzles. He studied artificial intelligence as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and holds a PhD in economics focused on game theory. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Paul Whitehead is Chess Coordinator for the Mechanics' Institute. He is a FIDE Master, a USCF Life Master, and former US Junior Chess Champion.

Judit Sztaray is General Manager of Youth Outreach and Events at Mechanics' Institute's Chess Club.  She was the 2017 Organizer of the Year for the US Chess Federation, and has been the International Arbiter-elect, FIDE Arbiter and Developmental Instructor of the FIDE Associate, and the National Tournament Director of the US Chess Federation. She has organized and arbitrated thousands of tournaments, in-person and online.

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