Chuck-a-Luck boards?

[Nick Sparks]

Gents, the question is in the title,what were they and how were they made?

Thank you,

Nick Sparks

[cprljohnivey]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Short answer: its a game with numbers 1-6 painted on the game board. Long answer: Suggest you read Hardtack And Coffee and Cpl Si Klegg And His Pard for details on what chuck-a-luck is and how it relates to the Civil War soldier. Then a google search for the rules.

[AndrewGrim]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Chuck-a-luck is a dice game, played with three six sided dice, numbered 1-6 on the sides. A bet is placed on the number that is going to come up on the most times on the dice, the typical payout is 1 to 1 for each time the number appears on the dice. All that is needed is an area to place bets. I have never seen a dedicated chuck-a-luck board, only as part of the more complicated Hazard boards.

[Huck]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Get ahold of Ray White, ask him for photos of the board he made.

[Nick Sparks]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Get ahold of Ray White, ask him for photos of the board he made.

is he on here?

[Huck]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Look up the user ID .... newshirt ...
photos of his board

.http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set...0992662&type=1

[Indianabugles]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

See also references to "Birdcage" as this game was sometimes called when captive dice in a cage were used to prevent rigging.

[RedLegLT]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

I'll have to find it, but buried in my parents house somewhere is a chuck-a-luck board we made on the white side of a ground cloth. We used to play with our pards in Company K, 6th Wisconsin. If you can't find pictures let me know and i'll see if i can dig it out...

[tomarch]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Has anyonetried out the board shown on this thread? I'm curious to know if it's weighted enough in favor of the "house" to make money for it's owner. BTW a few years ago New York,New York in Vegas had one solitary chuck-a-luck table on the casino floor. I used to get my "Civil War" moment while in Vegas there. Unfortunatly "luck" was gone and "chuck" usualy lost (apologies to Sam Watkins of "Co. Aytch"!)

[KeithRK]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Here are the rules from the 1864 edition of The American Hoyle including a diagram of a board. It's really just a place to make your bet.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NRsXAAAAYAAJ&dq=hoyle%20gentleman's%20games&pg=PA461#v=onepage&q&f=false

[newshirt]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Attached are photos of my boards. They are copied from John Wedeward's original board. (See link)

http://www.33wis.com/articles/pdf/Original%20chuck-a-%20luck%20board.pdf

I painted one on a pine board (which promptly cracked, giving it some character), and another on a rubber blanket. The "board" on the rubber blanket was painted with nib and ink. Each board took a weekend to paint.

I then pounded out three dice from minnie balls, dug out the numbered dots, and dabbed white in them.

Then I printed out chits from a museum website and pasted them to cardstock for "money."

The simplest version of Chuck-a-luck is a fair 50-50 game. But these boards give a 7% advantage to the house because all raffels (all dice the same) go to the house. The simplest version just has six numbered squares. As you can see, these boards have lots of additional options that make the game much more interesting.

I learned that reenactors are afraid of this game. It takes some encouragement to get them to play. They don't want to look stupid losing, or not understanding the (very simple) rules, or not performing in front of their pards. But once a game is going, it can last for hours. It's actually a LOT of fun.

[Huck]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Even/Odd or High/Low it's roughly a 50/50 shot. Any other bets, Ray "the house" will takes your money.

[newshirt]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

Even/Odd or High/Low it's roughly a 50/50 shot. Any other bets, Ray "the house" will takes your money.

The pounded-out minnie balls make the game much more interesting, so don't use modern wooden or plastic dice.

Here's why: pounded-out lead dice are not perfect. They sometimes come up with the same combinations.

So, players begin to recognize these combinations and bet on them. But it's not as frequent as one might think. So you have players hoping to figure out the best odds, and "the house" occasionally pounding a die with a rock to change its roll, which makes some interesting games!

[Huck]

Re: Chuck-a-Luck boards?

I think Ray " The House" should haul his board to Shiloh........