Board games you can play against the computer, free

If you want a race

Backgammon is the one to play. Dice decide how far you move and you decide what that means, which is why it stays interesting after a hundred games. The doubling cube is here too, so the stake can move as the position does.

If you want to think

• Chess, against an opponent that will punish a loose piece but not lecture you about it.
• Go, on nine by nine to start, which is the board every teacher recommends.
• Reversi, where the position swings wildly until the final few moves.
• Nine Men's Morris, which is older than all of them and meaner than it looks.

If you want something quick

• Connect Four: two minutes, and a real strategy hiding behind a simple rule.
• Checkers: forced jumps mean a trap is always one move away.
• Mancala: sowing stones, free turns, and captures that swing the count.
• Chinese Checkers: the hop chains are the whole joy of it.

If you want a word fight

Upwords plays like Scrabble with one twist: you can stack letters on words already on the board, and a word scores the height of its stacks rather than the value of its letters. The computer checks every word against a full dictionary, so obscure but real words are accepted.