Take it Away

Take it Away is a 1969 game by Sid Sackson, published at Dover.

It is played on a 8x8 board with 34 white, 20 red and 10 blue stones (for a total of 64 stones).

• The game begins by players randomly placing every stone on the board, one per square.
• The first player starts by removing a white (which he keeps)
• On each remaining turn, the current player must pick one stone on the board and execute with it a sequence of checker-like jumps (orthogonal and/or diagonal). The sequence cannot stop while there are jumps to be made. Every jumped stone is captured.
• When there are no more jumps available, the player with highest score wins the game.
• blue stones value three points, red stones two points, and white stones one point
• There is an optional way to end the game: any player at any time can say "Take it Away" meaning he removes himself from playing. The other player continues making jumps while possible. When he ends, the remaining stones on the board will count as negative points for the last player (which the rules call the patsy).
  

The 'take it away' rule is what makes this game interesting. It is an auction-like rule that adds a very nice tension to the game. The rules especially shines if the game is played with three or four players.

The game appeared in Sackson's book A Gamut of Games.

Here's its description on Jeux et Strategie #45, where it was called Butin (booty):

Nevo

Nevo, aka 2-5-8, is a 1979 game by Michael Vonderheid, published by ArtDeco Games.

The game is played in a 7x12 grid, and each player has twelve pieces. 

The initial setup,

The rules:

• On her turn, the player moves one friendly piece to an adjacent (orthogonal or diagonal) empty space.
• Any piece that becomes isolated, i.e., not adjacent to another friendly piece, is removed from the board.
• Pieces that move to the adversary area score points. In the first enemy row, the player gets two points; in the second row, five points; and in the last row, eight points.
• for a piece to score the previous rows in its column (in the adversary area) must be occupied by friendly pieces, 
• for each one of these columns, only the furthest piece scores (eg, three pieces in the same column only score eight points)
• The player that first achieves a position worth sixteen points wins the game, but with three different pieces (so, two pieces scoring eight points each is not enough).
  

Some notes:

• Since isolated pieces are removed, it means that a piece movement must be thought in tandem with the group it belongs
• The original rules state that it is a decision of the adversary to remove these isolated pieces. I'm not sure if there is any board position where it would be advisable to keep these enemy pieces on board.
• If a column (in the adversary area) is not entirely occupied, the more advanced pieces don't score points
  
• Notice that there are no jumps or captures. This is a race and blocking game.

Here are the original rules:

Perhaps it's not needed, but since pieces can move backwards, there should be a rule about repeating positions. A Ko-like rule would not be easy to implement. It could result in a draw after three repetitions, just like in Chess, or end with a win for the player with the current highest score.

 

The game had a brief review on Jeux et Strategie #2:

And an even briefer mention in GAMES magazine #20,

 

 

Oh, and here's Omar Sharif, well-known actor and less-known game tutor: