Hi! I'm japanese man and I 'm good at playing shogi which means japanese chess.
I used to play board games when I was a elementary school student.
Japanese elementary school students who often play board games in winter because it is cold outside.
Regardless childhood terms, japanese often play board games.
Japan has also many board games professional leagues, for example shogi, go, ma-jan and so on.
Speaking to most famous international board game, I think it may be chess so please tell me that do you play board games such as chess in your country?
I'm sorry for bad sentences.
It's not as popular in the United States as it is in other countries, but it's popular. Many high schools have chess clubs. Chess terms are used as analogies in common speech, e.g. to quote two current headlines, "Will a Stalemate in Congress cause a Government Shutdown?" "Americans Arrested in North Korea Remain Pawns in Nuclear Standoff."
One day I happened to be passing through Boston's big train station, where once in a while they have things going on to entertain people, and they had a chess master giving a demonstration, playing simultaneous chess against forty people.
In the U.S., chess is much more popular than go, but less popular than checkers. The most popular board games of all, though, are commercially developed board games for groups that combine strategy and chance. The most famous one by far is Monopoly. At a group gathering someone might say "Do people like board games?" and bring out a set, possibly something unfamiliar whose rules need to be explained.
Googling found me an article that claims "The percentage of adults who actually currently play chess (either weekly, monthly or during the past year) is12% in the UK; 15% in the U.S. 23% in Germany; 43% in Russia; and 70% Indians." I don't believe that at all, that seems at least ten times as high, but it is good illustration of relative popularity.
Personally, I (almost) know (most of) the rules but I rarely play. The last time I played it was with an eight-year-old who was just learning the rules. I know how to set up a board, I know the queen goes on her own color, I've more or less forgotten now "en passant" works, and I feel insecure about how to castle.
