Brief Review: Seven Games

 Recently, I checked out the book Seven Games by Oliver Roeder from the library and read it. In some ways I don't have a lot to say about it so this will be a brief review. Overall I liked the book. As its name suggests it is composed of seven chapters about seven different games. The writing is a mix of stuff. Some of it is about the history of the games, some of it is personal anecdotes, some of it is quotes from interviews with people involved in those games. Roeder is a journalist by trade and the chapters definitely read like magazine pieces. They are mostly pitched at a level to explain things to people who may not be familiar with the games or at least the more serious competitive levels of the games. The main emphasis of most of the chapters though is on the development of strong computer programs that can play the games. I did enjoy reading the book although there wasn't a whole lot that was new to me. I am also more interested in the culture of the games rather than the development of computer programs. I will say that it was interesting to read that bridge is so far is one of the games that doesn't have a strong computer program but Roeder definitely implied that this has a lot to do with bridge being a dying game in the sense of young people aren't picking it up. So overall I would recommend reading this if you like fairly light reading about the advent of strong programs in a variety of games. Roeder definitely seems to be knowledgeable and a real gamer himself.