Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Kabaddi players raid while holding one breath
In this intense South Asian contact sport, a player must run into enemy territory, touch opponents, and sprint back, all while continually chanting on a…
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Briscola demands the removal of eights, nines, and tens
The classic Italian trick-taker uses a stripped-down deck of forty cards, completely throwing off the counting of anyone used to a standard fifty-two. The…
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Why every baseball has 108 stitches
Every single regulation baseball is hand-sewn with exactly one hundred and eight double stitches using red waxed thread. Because if there were one hundred and…
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Durak literally translates to the fool in Russian
Unlike Western card conventions where you strive for a single winner, Durak is played solely to determine a single loser. The last person holding cards is…
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Squash began as a prison pastime
Elite prep school kids might dominate the courts today, but squash started in the 1800s at Fleet Prison. Inmates with too much time and limited space started…
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Volleyball was almost called Mintonette
William G. Morgan invented the sport in 1895 as a gentler alternative to basketball, naming it Mintonette. Fortunately, someone pointed out that this sounded…
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Why pinochle decks start at nine
A standard pinochle deck cuts out everything below a nine, doubling up on all the high cards instead. It is perfect for players who want the thrill of holding…
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Hacky Sack is actually called footbag
You might think you are just kicking a woven bag of dirt with your friends, but you are actually using a strictly protected corporate brand name owned by a…
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The sport where swimming strokes are banned
Competitors don flippers and snorkels to furiously paddle through a freezing, muddy trench cut into a Welsh peat bog. Traditional swimming strokes are…
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Playing cards can pierce watermelons
Ricky Jay and other illusionists turned flicking pieces of paper into a dangerous art form, routinely throwing playing cards fast enough to embed them in…
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The sport named after a dog
The fastest growing sport for people with bad knees got its moniker from the inventor's dog, Pickles, who kept chasing the ball into the bushes. So next time…
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Rummy evolved from a traditional Mexican pastime
Almost all modern rummy variants trace their lineage back to Conquian, a meld-making activity popular in nineteenth-century Mexico. So every time your…
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Why the Joker was added to card decks
The Joker did not exist in standard decks until American Euchre players in the 1860s demanded a designated trump card. So we can blame the Midwest for that…
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King of the hill relies entirely on pushing people down
This playground classic has exactly one rule: get to the top of a dirt mound and violently shove anyone who tries to join you. It is a terrifyingly accurate…
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Capture the flag became a corporate icebreaker
Originally played in open woods to simulate actual field drills, it has devolved into team-building exercises for middle managers. Nothing asserts workplace…
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The card game War requires almost no strategy
Turning over cards one by one to see whose number is higher requires zero mental effort. It is essentially a brutal exercise in statistical inevitability that…
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Why cornhole bags have a strict weight limit
If you thought throwing beanbags at a slanted piece of wood was just for drunk uncles, think again. The American Cornhole Organization strictly enforces bag…
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The sport where players call their own fouls
The sport operates entirely on a concept called the Spirit of the Game, which relies on players calling their own fouls. Because apparently, letting highly…
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Skat requires exactly three extremely attentive players
This German national pastime is notorious for a bidding phase so complex it requires a flow chart to explain to beginners. You basically spend ten minutes…
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Why the floor-is-lava game feels so real
The sheer panic of leaping onto the living room sofa because someone shouted a countdown taps directly into our ancestral fear of predators. We just replaced…
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Jai alai pelotas are thrown at terrifying speeds
Players hurl a rock-hard goat-skin ball against a wall at nearly one hundred and ninety miles per hour using a curved wicker basket. It is wildly…
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Bocce is arguably the most popular sport globally
Despite mostly being associated with retired Italian men drinking wine in parks, bocce boasts more participants globally than almost anything else. Turns out,…
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James Bond was once a baccarat man
While modern movies show the spy playing high-stakes poker, Ian Fleming wrote him as a baccarat aficionado. It makes perfect sense, as baccarat requires…
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The miners who put live ferrets down their trousers
A popular pub activity among English coal miners involved tying one's trousers at the ankles, dropping two live ferrets inside, and seeing who could withstand…
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