Perhaps the most serious incident of the contests had occurred in one of the games of bat and ball. In this contest there are two men on each side, and the object is to keep the ball out of the hands of the other team. No one man may hold the ball for more than the referee's count of twenty. He may, however, throw it into the air, provided it is thrown over his head, and catch it again himself.
The ball may be thrown to the partner, or struck to him with the bat. The bat, of course, drives the ball with incredible force. The bats are of heavy wood, rather broad, and the ball, about two inches in diameter, is also of wood, and extremely hard. This is something like a game of "keep away" with two men in the middle. I was pleased that I was not involved in the play. Shortly after the first "knock off," in which the ball is served to the enemy, Gorm, who was Ivar's partner, was struck cold with the ball, it was driven from an opponent's bat. This, I gathered, is a common trick.
It is very difficult to intercept or protect oneself from a ball struck at one with great speed from a short distance. It looked quite bad for Ivar at this point, until one of his opponents, fortunately, broke his leg, it coming into violent contact with Ivar's bat. This contest was calle a draw. Ivar then asked me to be his partner. I declined.
"it is all right," said Ivar, "even the bravest of men may decline a contest of bat-and-ball."
Marauders of Gor, page 140
Bones
Imnak and I sat across from one another, both cross-legged. He dropped a tiny bone to the fur mat between us. Each player, in turn, drops a bone, one of several in his supply. The bone Imnak had dropped was carved in the shape of a small tabuk. Each of the bones is carved to resemble an animal, such as an arctic gant, a northern bosk, a larl, a tabuk or sleen, and so on.
The bone which remains upright is the winner. If both bones do not remain upright there is no winner on that throw. Similarly, if both bones should remain upright, they are dropped again. A bone which does not remain upright, if its opposing bone does remain upright, is placed in the stock of him whose bone remained upright. The game is finished when one of the two players is cleaned out of bones.
Beasts of Gor, pg 184-185
Cat's-cradle
Others faced one another, kneeling, and, with string and their fingers, played an intricate cat's-cradle game. Others played "Stones," where one player guesses the number of stones held in the other's hand. I tried the cat's-cradle game but I could not play it, I always became confused, trying to copy the intricate patterns. How beautifully they would suddenly, in all their complexity, appear. The other girls laughed at my clumsiness. The northern girls, incidentally, were very skilled at this game. They could beat us all.
Captive of Gor, page 107
Dice
A number of men crowded between the tables then and some dice, inked knucklebones of the verr, were soon rattling in a metal goblet. Sura knelt before the table of Cernus, her head down. One of her guards snapped a slave leash on her collar. The leash key was on a tiny loop of wire. The guard twisted this wire about the red-enameled steel of her collar. Behind her the men began crying out, watching the tumbling of the knucklebones on the stones of the floor. I understood to some extent what was taking place.
It was merely another of the turnabouts of Kajuralia, but in it was perhaps more; Sura's pride and her position in the House, though she was slave, had been resented by many of the men and staff; perhaps even Cernus felt she had overstepped herself; surely he seemed pleased that she would now be humbled, now used as a common Red Silk Girl.
Assassin of Gor, page 248
Kaissa
Game! Game!" I heard, and quickly shook my head, driving away the memories of Ar, and of the girl once known, always loved.
The word actually cried was, "Kaissa," which is gorean for "Game." It is a general term, but when used without qualification, it stands for only one game, The man who called out wore a robe of checkered red and yellow squares, and the game board, of similar squares, with ten ranks and ten files, giving a hundred squares, hung over his back.
Slung over his left shoulder, as a warrior wears a sword, was a leather bag containing the pieces, twenty to a side, red and yellow, representing Spearmen, Tarnsmen, the Riders of the High Tharlarion, and so on. The object of the game is the capture of the opponent's Home Stone. Capturing of individual pieces and continuations take place much as in chess. The affinities of this game with chess are, I am confident more than incidental.
Assassins of Gor, page 26
The Players are not a caste, nor a clan, but they tend to be a group apart, living their own lives. They are made up from men of various castes who often have little in common but the game, but that is more than enough.
They are men who commonly have an extraordinary aptitude for the game but beyond this, men who have become drunk on it, men lost in the subtle, abstract liquors of variation, pattern and victory, men who live for the game, who want it and need it as other men might want gold, or others power and women, of others the rolled, narcotic strings of toxic kanda.
There are competitions of Players, with purses provided by amateur organizations, and sometimes by the city itself, and these purses are, upon occasion, enough to enrich a man, but most Players earn a miserable living by hawking their wares, a contest with a master, in the street.
The odds are usually one to forty, one copper tarn disk against forty-piece, sometimes against an eighty-piece, and sometimes the amateur who would play the master insists on further limitations, such as the option to three consecutive moves at a point in the game of his choice, or that the master must remove from the board, before the game begins, his two Tarnsmen, or his Riders of the High Tharlarion.
Further, in order to gain Players, the master, if wise, occasionally loses a game, which is expensive at normal odds, and the game must be lost subtly, that the amateur must believe he has won.
Assassins of Gor, page 27
Red Hunter's Soccerlike Game
"You spoiled her kick," said a man to me, in Gorean.
"I am sorry," I said.
The girl, with the other youths, had been playing a soccerlike game with the leather ball, with goals drawn in the turf. I had not realized, until too late, that I had been traversing the field of play.
Beasts of Gor, page 193
Stones
At "Stones," however, I was genuinely pleased with myself. It has two players, who take alternate turns. Each player has the same number of "Stones," usually two to five per player. The "Stones" are usually pebbles or beads, but in the cities one can buy small polished, carved boxes containing ten "stones," the quality of which might vary from polished ovoid stones, with swirling patterns, to gems worth the ransom of a merchant's daughter.
The object of the game is simple, to guess the number of stones held in the other's hand or hands. One point is scored for a correct guess, and the game is usually set for a predetermined number of paired guesses, usually fifty.
Usually your opponent tries to outwit you, by either changing the number of stones held in his hand or, perhaps, keeping it the same. I was quite successful at this game, and I could beat most of the girls. I could even beat Inge, who was of the scribes.
Captive of Gor, p 107
'Tal,' I said to two guardsmen who crouched at the side of a fire, playing Stones, a guessing game in which one person must guess whether the number of stones held in the fist of another is odd or even.
Outlaw of Gor, p 186
Zar
A board game of the Tahari. The board is marked like a Kaissa board, but the pieces - 9 per player, and called 'pebbles' - are placed at the intersections of the lines. Movement is somewhat like that of checkers, but without capturing of pieces. The object of the game is to effect a complete exchange of the original placement of the pieces