Chess is not the only abstract game — and it's far from the best entry point for kids. This article, part of our educational board games guide, shows where it's actually worth starting: games you can set up with a handful of pebbles in a minute (Nim, Lahti, Neutron), the great classics (Mancala, checkers, Go), and how you eventually arrive at modern gems like Santorini, Quarto, and Azul — plus an honest word about Hive and Onitama.
Are we not smart enough?
I don't even know what I've heard more from parents:
"I'm not smart enough for chess..."
"It would be nice if they played chess, but it's too complicated for my kids..."
"Somehow, games like chess don't seem exciting enough for my kids; nothing really happens in them."
Let's start by acknowledging that chess is not the only option. There are plenty of simple, home-friendly, easily manageable short games. And each of these has a big brother. So, there's no need to jump straight into the most complex ones; we can experiment with our and our children's limits in simpler, shorter, and therefore less risky forms.
Progress doesn't require us to strain ourselves; it comes naturally. As development unfolds, games can become more intricate, and we can accompany the boys for as long as possible. And let's not be afraid if they outgrow us; that's actually what we want, isn't it?
No time? No money?
Yes, that's a problem too. Buying something expensive and challenging just to not have time for it afterward? Ideally, kids play a lot both at school and at home, and it's crucial for parents to be part of the play at home.
Of course, it's great if a child attends a chess club, but the quality leisure time spent at home with parents, where play is an important organizer, cannot be replaced. Fortunately, not only long and complicated games are smart. If we have a few simple tools on hand, we can quickly put together games at home that are easy to learn and play.
What is an abstract game, really?
Many people don't even realize how many abstract games they already know. If you've ever played Tic-Tac-Toe in a grid notebook at school, pushed pieces across a checkers board, or played a round of Nine Men's Morris, you've been in this world for years. And plenty of people would never suspect that Azul, a modern favorite in so many homes, is an abstract game too.
We call a game abstract when it has no theme. It typically asks for logical or strategic thinking, it's mostly played by two, it leaves luck out, and every piece of information is visible and available to both players. Game theorists call this last part "perfect information" — but you can simply think of it as a game with no secrets: no hidden cards, no dice, nothing up anyone's sleeve.
There are classic counterexamples, of course. In dominoes, we draw tiles; in backgammon, we roll dice. And among the modern abstracts, Azul happily uses luck and plays well with more than two people. The borders are soft — and that's perfectly fine.
Why are abstract games so good for development?
The baseline answer is well known: abstract games train concentration, planning, pattern recognition, and strategic thinking. All true. But our angle is a little different, and it comes from practice, not from lists — because the more interesting questions are why children fall for these "boring" games when they meet them the right way, and what exactly a theme-less game does that a themed one doesn't.
Why are abstract games considered boring?
No, it's not because they lack color. Rather, it's because we don't encounter them at the right time and in the right context—not the first time, not the second time, and not the umpteenth time.
I've taught Kalah to more than 300 people, the rules of International Checkers to at least 200, and I can't recall a single adult or child who resisted. Instead, I often hear that they not only learned the game but also bought it and continue to play. Both games are regularly present in my educational sessions as well.
Imagine the joy of attending the graduation party of a disadvantaged family and seeing one of your students pull out a Kalah to play a few rounds. Achieving this isn't magic; the games themselves do the work. It's a matter of conscious building—what, when, and in what order?
Games that ask to be solved
My own path in board game pedagogy says a lot here. I arrived from the direction of modern board games, because I felt education was focusing almost exclusively on the "smart" games — chess above all, maybe checkers and Nine Men's Morris — while there's an enormous amount of developmental potential even in silly party games. For years I worked on hiding the learning inside play, mostly with disadvantaged children who were hard to motivate.
Then something interesting happened: it turned out that many of these kids are drawn precisely to simple, clean structures — Kalah, International Checkers, Nim, Lahti, Neutron. An abstract game asks you, quite openly, to crack it. A good modern board game invites you to play with it; a classic abstract game also wants to be figured out. It stands in front of you bare — just the position, the decision, and the consequence. There's no story to hide in: the brain has to work with the pure structure.
It's a fascinating experience to understand perfectly how Go works and still not be able to make it work, because putting every building block in the right place is desperately hard. So "hide the learning" is not a universal truth after all. Sometimes what moves a child forward is the opposite: putting the difficulty right in front of them — this is hard, and it wants to be solved. Think of puzzle locks: they annoy everyone to death, yet everyone keeps picking them up. Or the most famous Hungarian invention, the Rubik's Cube, which everyone owns and far fewer can solve. A more conscious learning situation can be the more effective one — as long as it doesn't paralyze the learner. That's the balance we're always weighing.
If you're curious about the broader picture — what board games do to a developing mind — we've collected the research and our classroom experience in a separate piece on the developmental impact of board games.
Why do we have time for development?
At times, impatience arises even among educators and parents. We want everything immediately because another child might already know it, our child could know it too, or according to the curriculum, we shouldn't be at this point anymore.
Meanwhile, children are walking their own path, and we can help them gently and modestly, but there's no need to stress if there's no significant issue. And it's certainly not a big problem if someone at the age of 5-6 is not competing with chess players with an Elo rating of over 2000.
Learning is a journey, part of which includes finding rhythm or motivation, and various games can superbly assist with that. Playing with many games is easiest when they are quick to learn and short. A parent or educator can filter from a two-minute game whether the children enjoyed it, whether it's worth delving into, and whether we've found the beginning of a path.
The progression ladder: which game at what age?
What I recommend first depends on a great many things. But if I can choose, Nim, Lahti, and Neutron are what I show first: pebbles, perhaps a tiny board — and you still have to think. They show beautifully what the world of abstract games is about, yet they can be learned and cracked quickly.
As for ages: labels on boxes usually say 6+ or 8+, but with abstract games the rulebook is rarely the obstacle. Their rules are often simpler than those of the board games recommended for young kids — what's challenging is not understanding the rules but operating what grows out of them. So when starting out, I only really watch one thing: length. Choose short games first. Mancala isn't even that short, and I've still taught it to preschoolers countless times — but Nim or Neutron are the safer first calls.
| Stage | Age guide | Games | Why these |
|---|---|---|---|
| First moves | 4–6 | Tic-Tac-Toe, Nim, Lahti (miniature checkers), Neutron | A handful of pebbles, a tiny board, rules in a minute — and 6–8 rounds fit into 15 minutes. |
| Building confidence | 6–9 | Kalah (Mancala), Gomoku, Quarto, Quoridor, Blokus, Santorini (base game) | Familiar ideas with one new twist at a time; short games with real decisions. |
| Going deep | 9+ | International Checkers, Go (9×9), Onitama, Hive, Azul, Twixt, YINSH (GIPF project) | Depth that rewards practice — these can stay with you for decades. |
Take the ages loosely. And don't be afraid of the "smart" games: notice how few rules checkers or Nine Men's Morris actually has. Even chess doesn't have many rules — it just has many kinds of pieces and a long playing time.
The next four chapters walk this ladder game by game: line-winning games, checkers, the pebble-counting family — and the variations that keep all of them fresh.
Tic-Tac-Toe and Line-Winning Games
Many games are underrated worldwide, and Tic-Tac-Toe is certainly one of them. With an average rating of 2.7 on the BoardGameGeek list, it doesn't make it into the top 25,000 games. Although Gomoku only has a 5.9 rating, its difficulty is 1.85 compared to Tic-Tac-Toe's 1.28, and the playing time has increased from 1 minute to 5 minutes. And this is what we are looking for.
Tic-Tac-Toe is a wonderful game for preschoolers because the playing field is limited, and the number of pieces is finite, making it easy to grasp. The goal is to have three of our pieces next to each other diagonally, vertically, or horizontally. The two players take turns, and someone quickly wins – if we understand the game, that someone will be the starting player.
Gomoku's board is larger, and more pieces need to be placed next to each other. Moreover, we can let it go, playing on a square grid, drawing circles and crosses with a pencil. I have many exciting memories of playing under the desk from school.
And you can twist things even further. Tőtikék (this is a Hungarian term, indicating that the rows need to be filled) are line-winning games where the placed stones/pieces slide towards the arrow until they hit an obstacle (the edge of the board or another stone/piece). So, often, you can only place them where you want after lengthy constructions, but meanwhile, the situation is constantly changing.
So, with our children, we can sit down to play Tic-Tac-Toe even in preschool, and we can also make a cute, personalized set. From here, it will be very easy to move on to more complex line-winning games, comfortably following the path of development.
And if your child is most easily won over by a modern, colorful box, Quarto is my choice from this family: a line-winning game with a twist, a close relative of Tic-Tac-Toe, so it feels instantly familiar. The twist that makes it special: the piece you place is chosen by your opponent.
2x5 or 10x10
Many may not know, but in a slight exaggeration, you can play checkers on any size board. Lahti is the simplest form I know. There are 2 rows with 5 fields each, and one of the two middle fields is marked, for example, with a crown. Alternately, we place our 4 pieces each, and the battle can begin. The winner is the one who knocks out all the opponent's pieces or the one who has only 1 piece left but can enter the field marked with the crown.
Moves can be made laterally and diagonally, hitting is mandatory if possible, which we can execute by jumping over the opponent's piece if there is an empty space behind it. The game goes quickly; you can play 8-10 rounds in under 20 minutes while learning the basics of checkers.
Most people play checkers on an 8x8 board, but International Checkers on a 10x10 board and its rules fulfill the potential in checkers. With 20 pieces each, the goal is to annihilate the opponent. We can only move forward, diagonally, on dark squares, and only one at a time. If we can jump over the opponent, we must do it, and thus, we hit the piece.
If there are multiple hits on the board, we must always choose the longer one because there are combo hits, as often seen in movies. Moreover, hitting backward is also possible and obligatory. If you reach the opponent's baseline, your piece becomes a king (double-height figure), which can then move any number of spaces and hit from any distance.
Checkers is fundamentally an exciting, aggressive game that channels and releases aggression within its boundaries. The rules are simple, but on larger boards, there is plenty of depth. You can even venture into competition, but, as we know, it's not the primary goal.
A Friendly Encounter with Sets
When we look at a pile of something, it's good to have a rough idea of how much it is because many conclusions can be drawn from it. For example, whether a handful of change is enough for a cookie to go with the soda. In many board games, we estimate quantities, and a basic game for this is Nim, which has numerous variations.
Typically, the goal is for you to pick up the last pebble, which, according to some rule, are in sets during the game, and generally, you can only pick from one set in your turn. For a while, we just pick up pebbles, then we start counting, and then we leave that behind too because at a glance, we know whether the set has an even or odd number of elements, and that's enough for us.
After many Nim rounds, Mancala won't be unfamiliar. Here, too, we work with quantities, as, aside from our own holders, taking one by one counterclockwise, we scatter our pebbles. The goal is to have more pebbles in our collector by the end of the game than the opponent's. Recognizing quantities is important because with strategic moves, we can either steal or make multiple moves, thus collecting more pebbles.
Kalah, by the way, is the most popular game both in our home and in my teaching practice — wonderfully simple rules, an unusual, attractive look, and genuine tactical depth. It's no accident that my own game, Lily Hop, is a Kalah-type game: you can play it for free right here on the site, and it even comes with ready-made learning material.
It's evident that we're not at the Nim level anymore, but perhaps it's also clear that the path might be easier from there than if we started directly here because Mancala can be 20 minutes of aimless dropping if we're not ready for it.
Recognizing quantities and patterns play a significant role even in the deepest game in the world, Go. On the massive board of Go, seeing the strength of patterns, understanding the possibilities within them is essential for successful gameplay. And so, we progress from a handful of neatly arranged pebbles to Go, which has been conquering for more than 4000 years.
Let's Keep an Eye on Variations!
I won't go into further details, but I'd like to draw attention to variations in two more popular games.
Nine Men's Morris is also a well-known and once-played game that can become dull after a while. But did you know that there are various Nine Men's Morris boards? Is the experience the same on each? The answer is definitely no. Similar but not identical, and this is crucial, especially if we have children who are reluctant to step out of their comfort zone, but we still want them to encounter new things.
At the beginning of the text, chess was extensively discussed, probably the most well-known game globally and rightfully popular, yet understandably feared. In my experience, for children not particularly interested in chess, the events tend to unfold too slowly. There are many exciting variations of chess as well.
In our book 'Jól játszani' (Playing Well) co-authored with József Jesztl, we introduced a Kobold Chess, which, on a smaller board, incorporating elements of Shogi, offers a more dynamic, faster alternative for those interested in chess but not committed enough to the traditional slow pace.
The modern classics: bridges, not chess substitutes
Let me start with a confession: I don't think hunting for a "chess alternative" is the right direction. Whenever I read that a game is "just like chess, but…", I get suspicious — if we want chess, let's play chess. Chess itself is pure; it's just hard to learn and hard to play well, and I understand why people fear it. But if someone is drawn to abstract games, I wouldn't necessarily go looking for alternatives in the modern world — I'd start with the pure, short classics above.
Take Hive, so often recommended as the chess substitute. Between Hive and chess, honestly, I see very little connection. Both are for two players? Yes. There are moves? Yes. Anything else? Not much. Hive is a big personal favorite of mine, but I don't consider it easy to teach to children: "no board" sounds like freedom, yet in practice, it's often too much freedom, and Hive is a genuinely complex game with many piece types, movement rules, and an unusual environment. Onitama looks more chess-like with its board and pawns, but its rotating movement cards open completely different dimensions again. In an abstract game, I look for purity — that's what I teach first.
Where Hive, Onitama — and Azul — do come to my mind is later: when the abstract games are already going well and I want to open the door toward modern board games, because each of them carries something from that world. They are bridges, not starting points.
Santorini: the one that wins young kids over
Santorini is spectacular, smart, and easy to learn. The base game works well before school age — it's purely a matter of practice. I personally skip the god powers even with older players, because for me they wash away exactly the clean elegance I love. (That's taste, not law.) In my sessions with kids, Hive and Onitama never became favorites — but Santorini won several children over. I'm convinced the building is what does it: they get to tinker and create, and for that, they'll happily hunt for the logical moves.
Azul: the bridge between two worlds
People argue endlessly about whether Azul is a "real" abstract game — it has a theme, but the machinery underneath is pure abstract. Whenever you see a debate like that, one thing is certain: the game is a superb bridge between the two worlds. I've taught Azul to someone who knew abstract games well but wasn't open to modern board games at all — and to someone who had declared all abstract games boring. It was a convincing answer to both problems.
Twixt, Gigamic, and the GIPF project
And don't let anyone tell you abstract games are all centuries old — modern designers have produced exciting titles too. One of my favorites is Alex Randolph's Twixt, and Gigamic's now-classic releases are important to me as well: Pylos, Quarto, Quoridor. Blokus, with its Tetris-like territory claiming for up to four players, belongs on the family shelf too. And if you're after the true brain-burners, the GIPF project (YINSH, TZAAR, DVONN and company) is made for you. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is: beautiful, clean, complex abstract games.
You'll find more family staples like these in our essential board games guide.
One set, many games: an abstract shelf for pennies
Simple board games are all easy to make at home. My standing advice: collect decorative pebbles in at least three colors, and they'll serve you in a surprising number of games. Boards can simply be drawn — or, if you want something nicer, design and print them, then laminate.
My favorite "one set, many games" combinations:
- A Go board and stones → Go, Gomoku, Pente
- An egg carton and small stones → Mancala
- A squared notebook and a pencil → Tic-Tac-Toe, Gomoku — anywhere, anytime
- A handful of pebbles in two colors and a drawn grid → Nim, Lahti, Neutron
You can build our games at home too: we've made downloadable, nicely designed boards for Lily Hop and Pebble Huddle. And I love playing on the ground — anything works on a board chalked onto asphalt, and Kalah is wonderful in pits dug into wet sand. Be creative!
And before you buy anything: play online. Trying abstract games on free platforms like BoardGameArena or boardspace.net is the most cost-effective way to find out whether this type of game is for you. Right here on PlayWise, you can play Lily Hop and Pebble Huddle free in your browser.
If this budget-friendly angle speaks to you, our whole guide to games you can play without anything continues the thought.
How to introduce abstract games — and what about losing?
A few practical principles that have served us well, whether you're a parent or a teacher:
- Don't over-explain the first game. If the rules need more than a minute or two, pick a shorter game.
- Play right away instead of presenting. The game teaches itself faster than we can describe it.
- Play real games — don't engineer the outcome. Both losing and winning are experiences that need practice.
- It's best when the adult is learning too: equal chances make the strongest sessions.
Should we teach kids how to lose?
I think the focus is off when we ask how to teach a child to lose. The real goal is to build a culture of play in which who wins and who loses is simply not the main point. We play for the experience — to learn, to get better, to grow. We fixate on the losing question because angry, melting-down kids disturb us, and then nobody can concentrate on what actually matters.
And something we rarely say out loud: children can't win either. It's not just that they sometimes gloat — much more importantly, they often can't genuinely experience that they were clever, that their good decisions added up to something.
If we're lucky enough to build from zero, I suggest starting with short games that beg to be replayed — Nim, Lahti, Neutron. Kids understand them fast, master them fast, and six or eight rounds fit into a quarter of an hour, which is the best learning there is. The other track is bringing in games with luck — dice games like Pig or Katego: minimal components, simple rules, short rounds. From there, I open toward modern games through luck, or through party games. What I've just described is weeks' worth of ammunition — and for those weeks, losing won't be a topic at all, while the joy of play quietly soaks in. After that, going deeper is much easier.
One more tool worth knowing here: playing with a handicap. We've written a whole piece on giving advantages — how a well-chosen head start keeps games honest between unequal players.
Frequently Asked Questions
Courage, Serenity
Let's not abandon the world of abstract games just because they may seem a bit challenging. Instead, let's seek simpler starting points and build meticulously; it's worth it. It's surely not a coincidence that these games have been with us for hundreds, sometimes even thousands of years, while in the realm of modern board games, titles that are merely 10-20 years old often already feel worn out.
Let's unravel their secret together, and the first and most crucial step, one that justifies their existence, is to play them!
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