When you’re ready for a break from studying,
it’s good to know where you can go to play some games. The University of Rochester Simulation Gaming Association, UR Chess
and EmptySky Go club are all clubs on campus dedicated to playing a variety of games.
URSGA
The University of Rochester Simulation Gaming Association (URSGA)
is the university’s premier club for those interested in role-playing, miniature, collectable card, board games and anime. The organization sponsors many events on campus such as anime nights and SIMCON.
On Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons URSGA brings a little piece of Japanese culture to the university by sponsoring anime showings. A different anime program is shown at each screening. The showings are free to members of the UR community. The group also houses an extensive anime library, which is also free to members.
URSGA also sponsors SIMCON, a gaming and anime convention held in Wilson Commons in March. This will be the 26th annual SIMCON event, which brings many members from the Rochester gaming community together, including students and alumni. SIMCON lasts four days and houses tournaments, game demonstrations, an anime room and discussions about upcoming games and events.
The group also maintains an extensive library containing board games, card games and computer games, all of which is available to members of the organization. The group is housed in Wilson Commons 504, where someone can usually be found playing a game.
“There are always people up there,” Holly Scutt, President of URSGA, said.
URSGA holds meetings every Monday at 7:30 p.m. in Douglass Dining Center. A complete list of anime showings and upcoming events can be found on their Web site: http://www.ursga.org.
Chess Club
The UR Chess club is a group of people who gather together to play,
you guessed it, chess. For those of you not in the know, chess is a game where your pieces are meant to represent two armies locked in combat. The goal of chess is to capture your opponents’ king, despite the fact that the queen is clearly the most powerful piece.
UR’s chess club meets in the Pit every Monday and Tuesday from 9 p.m. to midnight. “After you play for a bit, you start to see patterns in the way people think which could help with predicting trends in politics or economics, because you know how people are going to react to different situations,”President of the UR Chess Club Jim Mullen said.
“It’s also a fun game to play,” he added.
Go Club
The EmptySky Go club – http://www.emptysky.org – meets in the
bridge lounge of Wilson Commons on Fridays at 5 p.m. It is a combined club with the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Go Club. Go is a strategy game of Chinese origin. Players place pieces on the board and try to surround their opponent’s pieces. Go is easy to learn but has subtleties and intricacies that can take much practice and effort to understand.
For more information, visit the EmptySky Web site or attend one of their weekly meetings.
