Among the other guests this year is Danny Gordon, a 14-year-old chess prodigy from Shelby School, near Payson, who will take on all comers. Kriegspiel, Double Bughouse and team and speed chess are scheduled. All of the usual competitions, demos, a dealers' room and much more will also be featured, including role playing and board games, a Bot Bash Maze, contests, a used-game auction, a video room, miniature painting and miniature games, including a toy soldier game played according to rules written in 1912 by H.G. Wells.
The card games go pretty far past the likes of Go Fish and Rummy -- the offerings at HexaCon this year include The Great Dalmuti, Guillotine, Magic, and The Legend of the Five Rings, as well as such recognizable-to-non-geeks standbys as Star Wars, Star Trek and Pokémon. Sanctioned tournaments are scheduled all three days.
The event, as always, is designed for seriously hard-core game fiends: It starts at 10 a.m. Friday, July 14, and continues round-the-clock until 3 p.m. Sunday, July 16, at Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort, 7601 East Indian Bend in Scottsdale. Admission is $20 for the weekend, for all ages. A preregistered members-only session is also scheduled for the evening of Thursday, July 13, featuring a "limited consuite," whatever that is. For details check www.casfs.org (the Web site of the Central Arizona Speculative Fiction Society). For registration, call 602-973-2341 before the convention, or 480-991-2400 during the weekend, or beforehand for room rate information.