Rio Grande Games Yinsh

Fantastic game! Similar to the other Gipf games, which are all two-player abstract strategy (i.e., like chess) games. In this one your goal is to collect three rings of your color. Each player starts the game with 5 rings of their color on the board (placed however they like). By moving rings, you can place markers in your color on the board. Make a row of 5 markers of your color, and you get to collect one ring from the board. At the same time, your opponent can use their rings to change the markers youve placed to their color instead, and get their own row of 5. Because you use the rings to place/change markers, each ring you remove makes it harder to make a new row of 5, even as it gets you closer to winning. Be aware that this is not the original run of the game, so the box is different from the original. The picture on the Amazon page shows the original box art, but that is NOT what youre getting. If youre trying to get a matching set with the other 5 games be sure you get the correct printing. Beyond that, the game is the same, and though the pieces look slightly different they are still very high quality.

Fantastic game, which is easy to learn, but difficult to master.

Quick pick up and good pace. Everyone Ive introduced it to really likes it. A lot of interesting characteristics for a simple abstract. Its difficult to perfect. You sacrifice to compete and surprised by outcomes. There is somewhat of a handicap as the player in the lead loses a piece. Sometimes youll sit out a score to leverage a block. You can definitely get better at it despite feeling somewhat chaotic on the first couple plays. Only issue is minor wrinkling on the board edge which gives an unsightly spot where it looks like its peeling some but very small and not enough to complain over.

Its easy to learn, fast to play, but itll take a while to master! Really solid game pieces, too.

Really fun game. Great seller.

Bought this for my 11 year old granddaughter who loves board games. She has played it with her dad and says she really likes it. I’m happy.

This game has a great build quality of bakelite & metal for the pieces, and a standard cardboard game board. The box is oversized for its contents, but that means you could possibly store other Gipf games like Zertz in this. Also, the pieces and board are reusable for other games, such as Backgammon, Checkers, & Gipf, so that is a nice bonus (though you will need the right boards for Backgammon and Checkers, but the Yinsh board is big enough to play Gipf without any modification). Gameplay is easy to understand but there is a lot of depth that is easy to miss the first time around. Your rings are critical for blocking and offense, and in the former case could become pinned. Adjacent rings or those aligned in the same row are considerably weaker, and if you have your rings clumped together, you are in a weak position. Ideally, you want to build your rows of markers in such a way that is is impossible or exceedingly difficult for your opponent to convert them. This game, unlike Othello/Reversi, allows for a much more offensive play, but the consequence is that as you progress, you get weaker with less options to place pieces. Gameplay can quickly pivot, with the person with a winning setup suddenly usurped by the underdog that converted the enemy pieces into their own. You will commonly find yourself having to possibly break up your own lines, or create forks in order to defend against the opponent and build out your longer term strategy. The nature of the game does make it harder to predict many moves ahead, as the board can look so different so quickly. This makes it easier for beginners to compete with more experience players, which I think is a plus when introducing the game to new players. Unfortunately, this game is commonly hard to find in the US, and scalpers sell the game for over $100, When the game has a MSRP of about $35. Fortunately, the German Amazon, Amazon.de, is able to ship this game to the states, for a total cost of around $30-35, which is totally worth it IMHO, as you are buying from a trusted seller a a close to market price. This is definitely the first game of the Gipf series I would start with, both for the aesthetics and the gameplay.

I love it. Its fun to play.

Really fun game! Kinda like checkers but strategic like chess! Easy to learn and play

Fast game for two.