About Sid Sackson

Sid Sackson was born in Chicago, Illinois, on February 4, 1920 to Aaron and Esther Sackson. He was fascinated by games from a very early age, with his mother buying him a new game every week. As a small child, he worked on improving the games he received. His first effort involved modifying his Uncle Wiggily game until it became a war game with soldiers and cannon. He found the Lotto game dull and turned it into a solitaire game of historical empires. 

When Sid was young, his parents divorced. His father, a draftsman (civil engineer), was hit very hard by the Great Depression and struggled to find employment. After moving from city to city (including Gary, Indiana, and Philadelphia), Aaron and Sid moved to the South Bronx. The young boy spent many hours creating, modifying, and playing games alone or with his father. Sackson also developed an interest in ballroom dancing and served as the editor of his high school newspaper.

In 1937, Sackson entered City College of New York, from which he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering. As a professionally licensed civil engineer, his projects included work on the battleship Missouri, the aircraft carrier Yorktown, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and the World Trade Center. He established his residence in the Bronx with his wife, Bernice, who he married in 1941, and eventually the couple were joined by their son, Dana, and daughter, Dale. The Sacksons did jigsaw puzzles together but quickly switched to board games. They developed a circle of friends who were also game fans, and many evenings were spent playing games. As Sackson developed his passion for creating games, his family and friends often play-tested his efforts. His first published game was Poke, a poker variation that he submitted to Esquire in 1946. A two-handed version of bridge, called Slam, was published in a syndicated bridge column in 1951. Although he invented scores of games, he did not sell any during this period of his life.

In 1958, Sackson met a game inventor who was demonstrating his products in Gimbel’s Department Store. The inventor introduced Sackson to his agent, who agreed to try to place some of Sackson’s games with manufacturers. Milton Bradley finally agreed to buy Sackson’s game High Spirits in 1962. To Sackson’s disappointment, the firm changed the adult game into a children’s game, High Spirits with Calvin and the Colonel, which continued to be produced even after the television program it was named for was cancelled [the game was later reproduced with different themes as Das Superblatt (1992) and Buried Treasure (1999)]. However, during that time he had modified his early solitaire game based on Lotto into a multi-player game that he called Acquire. He sold that game to 3M Company, which successfully published it and five other Sackson games in the 1960s and early 1970s. Sackson considered Acquire one of his best and most successful games.

During the 1960s, Sackson and his wife traveled to Europe several times, meeting game enthusiasts and purchasing items for Sackson’s growing collection of board games and reference works on games. Sackson’s collection of over 15,000 games eventually filled three rooms and the basement of his house, with games stacked from floor to ceiling. File cabinets contained reproductions and detailed descriptions of rules for thousands of games. He also kept daily work diaries beginning in 1963, many meticulously indexed, of all his game-related activities, contacts, and ideas.

Sackson wrote A Gamut of Games, a collection of card, board, and party games that was published by Random House in 1969. The book contained games developed by Sackson and several of his friends, as well as a few classics. It also included an appendix of short reviews of “games in print.” The book became popular among game enthusiasts, was reprinted in several editions over the next 15 years, and is considered a classic work. Patterns, a game of inductive logic that Sackson had created for A Gamut of Games, was featured in Martin Gardner’s November 1969 column in Scientific American and appeared on the issue’s cover. The column attracted considerable interest in the scientific community and garnered wide publicity for Sackson.

By 1970, Sackson was making more money from his games than from his engineering job. His need for flexibility to continue inventing games and writing game reviews for Strategy & Tactics magazine prompted him to quit the engineering field and devote all his time to his passion during the next 25 years. Sackson ultimately created more than 500 games; about 50 were marketed. Among his most notable were Acquire, Can’t Stop, Sleuth, Focus (Domination), Bazaar, Metropolis, Monad, Take Five, and Venture. Foreign editions of his games were also published, particularly in Germany where his games found a wide audience in the 1980s and 1990s. His games received several European awards including the Spiel des Jahres in 1981 for Focus. Several other games were recommended for the same honor. Some games have been reissued in special editions since Sackson’s death. Sackson wrote game reviews for Strategy & Tactics, Games magazine, and the Gamers Alliance Report. Many of his games were published in Games issues. Pantheon published five books of Sackson games and Prentice-Hall published another Sackson book, Playing Cards Around the World. He corresponded with professional game designers as well as amateurs who developed ideas for games and asked him for advice and critiques. Annual visits to the Toy Fair in New York City were opportunities to meet colleagues and to acquire more games and reference materials for his huge collections. By the mid-1990s Sackson’s health was declining. His final years were spent in a nursing home, and he died on November 6, 2002. His vast collection of games was auctioned off to game fans and collectors in 2002 and 2003.

Sackson believed the inspiration for designing a game was simple: he just built on something he found interesting. He liked to play games because his brain felt good after a mental workout, and “it’s fun to show how smart you are.” He enjoyed the companionship involved in playing games, which was a key reason he didn’t enjoy computer games: “there is no human face across the table.” Sackson played games to win but didn’t especially care if he won or lost, believing “it’s only important that the game was interesting.”

About Bernice Sackson

Bernice Pearl Berdick Sackson, Sid Sackson’s wife, was born in 1921 to parents Morris D. Berdick (1897–1990) and Adele Hoffman (~1898–1984), both of whom came to the United States in 1904. Bernice went back to school in the 1960s and later worked at an upscale preschool. However, she left at Sid's request to help him with the game business. Bernice was integral in developing Sackson's games through playtesting, typing manuscripts, and providing support by managing the household, finances, and cooking for the many times they entertained game industry friends and hosted game nights. She passed away in 2005.