Toguz Korgool Again: A Week at the Asian Championships

Team Toguz Korgool USA was back in action a few weeks ago, as my colleague and teammate Bobby and I made our way to Bishkek to represent the United States again in the Asian Championships of Toguz Korgool (actually called the Open Championships of Asia, which is why we were allowed to compete, but in Russian the name literally means Asian Championships).  So, we dusted off our boards, played a few practice matches, and sat down with some of our friends from the World Nomad Games for another run of 7 friendly matches in the name of cultural preservation and friendship. Continue reading “Toguz Korgool Again: A Week at the Asian Championships”

Mile 17-18: Nomad Games, Uzbekistan, America, Oh My!

As I warned back at the end of August, I had a lot of excitement coming up this fall in my life… so since I’ve done special posts on the big things that were a part of it, I’m going to combine these two months into a single summary to talk about everything that I didn’t get to talk about in those other posts. Continue reading “Mile 17-18: Nomad Games, Uzbekistan, America, Oh My!”

Toguz Korgool: A Traditional Kyrgyz Board Game

You’ve almost certainly never heard of Toguz Korgool, which literally means “nine sheep droppings.”  But, in honor of my upcoming posts from the World Nomad Games, it’s probably a good idea that I explain to you exactly what I was doing there for 9 hours a day: I was playing a board game called Toguz Korgool (also known as Toguz Kumalak in Kazakhstan).  And I guarantee you that in 15 minutes or less, you can be playing too. Continue reading “Toguz Korgool: A Traditional Kyrgyz Board Game”