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| Česká federace mankalových her | ||||||||
| Reports (stories) | ||||||||
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There are not many things to mention in this time period. Several books by the Czech game collector Milos Zapletal were published in the 1980s. In his great encyclopedia of games, part 2, Games in the clubhouse you can find rules for Toguz kumalak and Awele (ie Oware).
At the beginning of the nineties I got into the hands book Spalicek her and especially the Great Book of Board Games, where is the entire section about mankala. We play at home, no original mancala board available, so I use instead little plastic plates of baby dish set and lids from round Christmas chocolate collections. As stones I use magnets from one kit. At the end of the 1990s, I got to the Go club. The market is starting to fill with interesting boardgames, such as from Gigamic, and in my first Go tournament there is a side tournament in Oware where I found that the winning strategy is something completely different from that what I tried to play home made. We start playing regular Othello and we are forming a federation for this game. We are also starting to present boardgames at various events for public.
In July 2001 the first Deskohraní festival takes place. I appear there as the chief of ludotheque, a space for free play, which (fortunately for me) is largely filled with abstract games that I know. My first appearance on TV and radio. For television, I showed how to play backgammon. From the camera I was so nervous that I roll the dice, move one stone and immediately I forget which one of the two dice I used to move it. So I still do not know if I played according to rules at that time :-) In one of the friendly backgammon games I got a stone thrown away and I could only return it into play if I roll number one. But the one is not coming. Instead, I got 6 dubbles in a row. Bad luck.
Because this Deskohraní is like a miniature copy of the big english Mind Sports Olympiad, there are several guests from abroad. Among them is David Kotin, who wants to add the Oware tournament. (Originally it was not in the program). Thanks to this, Oware is at Deskohraní almost every year. The second year, held on the weekend in second half of June 2002, Kotin is the winner of the Oware tournament. There is a flood in Prague in August. Since 2003 Deskohraní has been held in October. The place is still the same. Well almost the same, as we have more and more rooms inside the same building. Already on the first year, Saturday night was so crowded, that people also played on tables of A5 notebook size.
2006 - this year is extremely important. David Kotin starts permanently live in the Czech Republic (Did that first year's bad luck in backgammon bring me happiness in love?) when he visits the Mind Spors Olympiad in England, he meets Kazakh group of Togyzkumalak players. We also discover the quality of the festival in Pardubice. 2007, the Kazakh group appears at the Deskohrani and 2008 in Pardubice. In 2008, the Kyrgyz group join us, in 2016 the Turkish group.
2010 - the first World Championship in Togyzkumalak is held in Kazakstan, but it is long story, so it is in separate article, as all the events from following years.
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| First tournament in Toguz in Czech Republic, 2007 |