10 OLDEST Board Games In History

3. Checkers (3000 BCE)

How old? Bloody hell. If you say so, lads. I’m not a huge fan of checkers. It’s actually a game that’s been solved by Canadians scientists, who have created a computer programme called Chinook which you cannot beat. Literally the best outcome you can hope to achieve against it is a draw. Fun. But hey, I guess they weren’t counting on terrifying AI back then. Back then being apparently 5000 years ago. Checkered boards have been found in Ur (again, a hotbed of tabletop gaming, my kind of town) that date back to 3000 BCE, with similar ones also being found in ancient Egyptian burial chambers along with checker style game pieces. Versions of the game have been described by Plato and Homer, not the Simpson, it was played during the Trojan war, and in ancient Rome, it’s quite literally been around.