[ddol]

I disagree. You can teach a 4-year-old the moves each chess piece can make, but expecting them to absorb strategy, or to visualise 2+ moves into the future is an unfair burden.

The following are much better perfect information games for kids. I play each with my kids and have listed the age when they were able to strategise 2+ moves ahead:

- Gobblet Gobblers (4)

- Onitama (6)

- Hive (8)

[usgroup]

Perhaps its where I live, or the people I know, but at my kids pre-school, I suspect that few 4 year olds could play naughts and crosses to a draw. I think that sort of awareness started around 5.5-6, where it became more normal.

Gobblet Gobblers -- on a cursory look -- seems to me like a complication on top of naughts and crosses. Namely, adding the ability to mask opponent pieces, and replace existing pieces.

As a side note it seems to me that one could replicate Gobblet Gobblers by using coloured coins of 3 sizes, with the smaller coins trumping the bigger ones thereby implying stacks.

[smugma]

Gobblet is a great game, ages 4- seems right. My 9 and 11 year olds still play occasionally.

Hive v Onitama, is Hive better for older kids or just more complex?

[ddol]

Hive is more complex and less constrained than Onitama (bigger decision space).

We tried Hive when my eldest was 6 and it was beyond them. We tried it again a few years later at 8 and it clicked, has been part of our regular rotation of games since.