A Game Of Skill

Here's a challenging game for one person to play, says Steve Chernek

By the Mother Earth News editors

November/December 1978

"Here's a challenging game for one person to play, says Steve Chernek cot Phoenix, Arizona) And Steve-as you know if you 've ever whiled away a rainy summer afternoon or a long winter's evening with this simple little brain buster-is certainly right when he says ' challenging This is one shop project that tikes a lot longer to solve than it does to make!

All you really need to whip out this little stumper is a 3/4-inch-thick scrap of lumber (softwood is OK, hardwood is better) large enough to cut into an equilateral triangle with 5-inch sides a bag of golf tees (89 cents will buy enough to make up three games), a drill with an 11 /64-inch bit and a handsaw.

Cut out the triangle and then drill 15 holes-5/8-inch deep and spaced 13/16-inch apart-into the block of wood as shown. (The easiest way to lay out the pattern is by lightly penciling a smaller triangle 1?2-inch inside the edges of the wooden one, marking off a spot every 13/16-inch along the penciled triangle's perimeter connecting all the marked points with lightly penciled straight lines, and then drilling wherever two of the lines cross.) If you really want to get fancy, you can rout or scallop the upper edges of the wooden block Then finish it off with linseed oil, polyurethane, or the stain of your choice.

To play, just put a tee in every hole but one . . . then jump the tees like checkers-one at a time, removing each one you jump-until only one remains. That, of course, sounds ridiculously simple nut give it a try There are only a scant handful of 'winning' jump combinations and, as Steve says. On the very few occasions that I 'va won this game . . . I 've never been able to remember how I did it''

Which makes this a near-ideal Christmas gift for grown-ups and youngsters alike. Or maybe you'd prefer to run off a batch and use em as prizes for a holiday party. Either way, you cant lose with this one . . unless you decide to play the game yourself!