Das Lieblingsspiel von Adam Riese

Das Lieblingsspiel Von Adam Riese (the Favorite Game of Adam Riese) is a simple self-published wooden abstract arithmetic game for two that plays in 5 to 10 minutes, and that comes in a pouch.

Each player (light and dark) plays on the same off-set grid of three rows up and three rows down. Each row has a start value of ten and four spaces to fill, except one space marked (+), resulting in fourteen spaces in all to fill. Each player has 10 stones to place: four square value stones (4, 3, 2, and 1), three round arithmetic symbol stones (the minus sign, the division sign, and the multiplication sign), and 3 tall round scoring markers (two in their own colour and one in their opponent's). Players take turns to place one stone of their own choice from their own supply onto the appropriate spaces. After all stones are placed, the scores are determined. Each player scores all the rows that are marked by the tall scoring stones of their color (one of which is placed by the opponent), and the score for each row is the outcome of the simple formula that players have created with the stones. Whoever gets the most points overall is the winner.

Adam Riese, in the title, refers to the great German mathematician Adam Ries, better known as Adam Riese (1492-1559), whose work contributed to the phasing out of the impractical Roman numerals in favour of the Arabic numerals that we currently use, and who made it his life's ambition to bring the basics of mathematics and algebra to all people. For that reason, he wrote his science books in German, rather than in Latin, the language of the scientific elite, and was one of the first to do so. The German phrase "nach Adam Riese" (according to Adam Riese) is still used as an expression in the German language to emphasize the obvious correctness of a result of simple arithmetic.