10 Board Games That Lead To Real-Life Violence

6. A Phase 10 Disagreement Between OAPs Ends In Death

So look, as much as I can mine a whole bunch of comedy from throwing a quizzical look at not-intense games and wondering how they can lead to intense enough fights to end in violence, it’s clear that in most, if not all these cases, the blood was already bad. The board game just happened to be the trigger that set it all in motion, again, human, terrifying, and really that has to be the explanation here when a scuffle between two senior citizens in Cocoa Beach Florida broke out after a game of Phase 10, which is a card game that’s basically rummy but longer and so much longer and it only ends when one player completes 10 missions and each mission takes forever and for the love of god the game never ends. So, ok maybe I could actually see someone getting killed over Phase 10. In 2008, a 72-year-old man, Richard Fortner got irate at a fellow player, 68-year-old Marion Kachnik, because he was helping another player at the table. The dispute peaked with Fortner telling Kachnik to get out of his house or he’d fetch his gun, the gun was fetched and during a brief scuffle, the gun was used. Kachnik died, and Fortner was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and speaking of card games gone wrong…