Uncle Chestnut’s Table Gype

Elliott MillerApr 27, 2011

Famed author G.K. Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4000 essays, and several plays. In his autobiography, he mentions the game of “Gype” which he and pal H.G Wells invented. Chesterton tells “I myself cut out and coloured pieces of cardboard of mysterious and significant shapes, the instruments of Table Gype; a game for the little ones.”

Eternal Revolution has published the game of Uncle Chestnut’s Table Gype over 100 years later, it is an abstract dice/chess hybrid that looks interesting. The game was recently pickd as a Mensa Select game by American Mensa. Only five games receive the honor from Mensa each year for being “original, challenging and well designed.”

Here is what Eternal Revolution says about the game:

Eternal Revolution has published Table Gype as an abstract strategy game with a random element.

Players try to move their pieces from their home row to the row directly opposite. They may jump their own pieces or those of their opponents, but every jump randomizes the playing pieces that were jumped over.

Uncle Chestnut’s Table Gype is played with a cloth gameboard and 32 playing pieces in 4 colors. Each piece, a six-sided die, can represent any of 6 “mysterious and significant shapes” that move differently.