About Exeter Abstract Games

Who is running this site?

David Beckwith, with the essential Drupal support of Dr Dave Regis.

Who are they?

David Beckwith

I trained as a mathematician and taught maths to A Level and a little beyond for 40 years, now retired.  I like all kinds of games.  Over the years, I have been given many games as presents, and car boot sales and charity shops have been an excellent, inexpensive source.  I became a hoarder and I currently have between 500 and 600!  Sadly, I have not played half of these, but that is what retirement is for!

I was just building up momentum when the Coronavirus pandemic struck.  No more games of any variety over a table!  Whilst teaching, I was involved with running junior chess and in retirement I helped out each week at a couple of junior chess clubs.  One of these, Exeter Junior Chess Club, is run by Dave Regis and after the Covid closure, we discovered that we both like other, non-chess, abstract games.  We have learned lots of new abstract games in our weekly online sessions during the pandemic and continue to do so . . . . 

I have a poor memory and I now have the time to prop this up this by compiling various word-processed notes and spreadsheet reference lists.  One day I had the thought ‘Why not put these on the web?’, and here is the result – well, a start . . . I had to learn Drupal from scratch, which is a partial explanation for the initial slow progress, but the content is still modest and only growing slowly.   Playing abstract (and other) games is more fun and less tiring than writing about them!

Dr Dave Regis

Chess player and chess coach running the Exeter Chess Club website and chairman of the Devon Junior Chess Association.

Why is Exeter in the site title?

In my games hoard, I discover that I have about 60 abstract games.  When, hopefully, the pandemic has subsided, and we can resume indoor meetings, I need to find local people to play.  Perhaps I can form an Exeter Abstract Games group?  We shall see . . . .