Best games: Chess Players

If you love chess, start with Hive Pocket. It has the same goal, trapping one key piece, with no board and no dice, and a full game takes about 20 minutes. Santorini is the next one to try: a two-player abstract on a small board, where every move narrows what your opponent can do next.

These eight games keep what chess players tend to enjoy: a direct opponent, a plan you can read ahead, and losses that feel like your own fault. They are for the nights you want that same head-to-head tension with something new on the table.

Patchwork has no dice at all and turns the fight into a race for time and space. 7 Wonders Duel and Splendor Duel add cards, so there is some luck in what shows up, but the real game is denying your opponent what they need. Azul looks gentle until you notice how much of it is forcing the other player to take tiles they cannot use. The Blood of an Englishman is a small two-player puzzle about seeing further ahead than the other side.

Twilight Struggle is the long game on this list, two to three hours of the Cold War for two people. It has far more card luck than chess, but it is the one to pick if you like a whole evening of pressure and counterplay.