Talk:Kubb

Viking game?
I must agree about the history of Kubb, despite it always being purported as a viking game, I've yet to find any substantive evidence of that. I'd love to be proved wrong. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Medwards (talk • contribs).

A History of Harrow School
Christopher Tyerman's masterly 'A History of Harrow School 1324-1991' (ISBN 0198227965) states that the playing of Kabul was ended by a new headmaster at Harrow some ten years before the arrival of the teenage Churchill.



Some comments
There was a question regarding the accuracy of this article.

I have now looked through some sources, and they can not verify that "Kubb" is ancient in any way.

Swedish Wikipedia writes: It is often claimed that kubb is a Gotlandian game, with heritage from the Viking Age. However, during a game-lecture in the 1950s on Gotland, one of the members remembers how the game was then said to be from Scotland.

In Stockholm Parks, Kubb has been played with certainty in the early 1940s, possibly earlier.

Kubb in older literature
I can also not find any mention of Kubb in other older literature.

It is thus impossible to verify the rest of the history section

Fred-Chess 17:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Lots of complete rubbish
Goodness, what a mess, someone's had a lot of fun here...

"Prior to his drowning, Chuck King was a renowned specialist on the Arctic Kubb circuit"
 * - who is Chuck King ('chucking'?)
 * - there is an Artcic Kubb circuit?

"the Saxons would occasionally play a game on the shore, with a horse's skull as the central king piece. Cubthert of Mercia was said to be outstanding at pillyge, which is taken to be the hitting of the kubbs on the back row, and ryp, whose meaning is unknown."
 * - "a gome on shore" - of Kubb?
 * - "Cuthbert of Mercia is said..." - by who?

"...it is said Prussian artillery reused the cannonballs..."
 * - said by who?
 * - reused for firing, or for Cue-boule (in which case 'used' rather than 'reused' is the correct word)

"There is a clear need for standardisation, as the winner is usually the most accurate thrower" - ?? How does the lack of standardisation come into it if all throwers are using the same pieces?

"...unlikely that a commercial organisation will be able to impose such a standard..." ?! chess, bridge, and football have the same "problem", but seem to manage (ever hear of open standards?)

"The Friesian musician Wud Thrwyr" and "Lumpsa Timmba" Really? This whole paragraph is (moderatly clever) BS

"although a league in Somerset uses twine (in Swedish known as "Klumpa ihop sig av tvinnar" - literally "The chord that cannot lie".)" - Really? I don't think so... True - as a player in Somerset, I verify this.


 * Btw, the alleged translation from Swedish is inaccurate... 惑乱 分からん 19:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The Swedish phrase would be "lumping together from ..." (the last word, "tvinnar", looks like the present active of "to twine"). The English phrase "the chord that cannot lie" would be "sn&ouml;ret som aldrig ljuger". Vatine 13:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

"In New Zealand..." - say's who? Check out http://nzkubb.co.nz/ for verification.

"Gole's seminal 'Handbook on Kabaddi' (Maharashtra State Kabaddi Association 1978) claims a strong link between the Punjabi game and Kubb, without proving the direction of influence." - Really? There is a link back from the Kabaddi article to here, but probably put in by the same joker.

Oh, and Kyykkä and Bunnock seem similar enough to appear highr rather than just as links down the bottom. --Snori 18:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Woodworking category
I removed Category:Woodworking. I did not see anything related to woodworking in the article other than the set is made from wood. If anyone feels different, feel free to revert. Luigizanasi 07:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Pronounciation
not sure 'KOOB' is the right pronouncement. It should be more like 'CUB' - afaik - but with a more fronted vowel. You're wrong - check many American websites for confirmation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wikicat (talk • contribs). Note: that account was then renamed to as part of the usurpation renaming process on Dec 9, 2007

I agree 'Koob' isn't the right pronunciation. It's somewhere between Koob and Cub. Hard to describe exactly in English. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.213.113.133 (talk • contribs).
 * I would say that in IPA, it probably would be /kɵb/ in Standard Swedish, maybe slightly different it Gutnish. ɵ is apparently a Close-mid central rounded vowel. 81.232.72.148 00:29, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I concur. Koob is not the right pronunciation, although one often used. The correct vowel sound is short (as in Cub) but the mouth shape to form the vowel sound is similar to when you say Koob (but not quite). With a British English accent the vowel sound is quite like the "oul" sound in "could". Koob is definitely incorrect. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.74.94.173 (talk • contribs).


 * We have to find some way in the English language of pronouncing this. It is a proper noun, and as such, it has to be pronounced in its Anglicised way.  There's little worse than hearing an English person affecting a foreign accent to pronounce the name of a French town, for example.  Thus it's Boo-loyn for Boulogne, with no pretence at trying to pronounce it how the French say it. Thegn 23:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Cub, then. Although this is WP:OR... Jobjörn (Talk ° contribs) 23:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

regarding: "Kubb means "wooden block" in Gutnish, a Swedish dialect." Is this verified?djdatapimp

Literal translation?
"in Swedish known as "Klumpa ihop sig av tvinnar" -- literally "The cord that cannot lie"") What? Can anyone justify this translation into Swedish in any way? Being a native speaker of the language, it seems like complete nonsense to me... --Osquar F 20:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have to agree. "Klumpa ihop sig av tvinnar" is grammatically nonsense. If one would try to translate it, it would be something like "Clodding itself (or oneself) with twines" --Humppe 13:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Could someone change the purported-to-be-Swedish to a literal translation of the ENglish, then, shall I? I propose "sn&ouml;ret som aldrig ljuger" as a sufficiently good Swedish translation. Vatine 13:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Music
Kubb is a music band. They made a couple songs like Grow, Wicked and Alcatraz. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.156.8.103 (talk) 16:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyone going to bite the bullet and find footnotes?
Presumably this topic is covered decently in Scandinavian media. Does anyone speak a Nordic language and can help find references? The Swedish version has nothing really usable, but there appear to be some articles at http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubb if someone wants to run GoogleTranslate and see what statements in this article we can footnote to the Norwegian source. It just seems a shame to have a cool article with no decent footnotes, especially for a game this internationally popular. MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2011 (UTC)


 * "Presumably this topic is covered decently in Scandinavian media." - No, not really. It's just a lawn game, you know. A bloody fun one, but still just a lawn game. What I'd really like is to find out who invented it, but whoever did it isn't owning up. I'm to blame for most of the first paragraph under "history", but the most reliable source I could find was an high school students paper on the topic of why he plays Kubb, which refers to a self-published book ("Andersson, Erfors, Jernelo, Ulmaja, Kubb, Kubbhandboken, Förlaget Kubb, 2000, ISBN 91-630-4542-7") which I can't find a copy of. There are simply no reliable references to Kubb before the early 90's. --OpenFuture (talk) 07:48, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Needs English pronunciation
Pronunciation in Swedish or ancient Swedish dialect is far less helpful, is distracting, and if retained at all, should be moved to a history section or a footnote.

Ocdnctx (talk) 23:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not ancient. And that's how you pronounce it. If you can't, then you are welcome to do your best. :-) --OpenFuture (talk) 11:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.usakubb.org/resources/US_National_Kubb_Championship_Rules_v3.0.pdf. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Dpmuk (talk) 17:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Self contradictory?
The history section had a contradict-template. I can't find any contradiction and no rationale was provided, so I have removed it for now. If you want to replace it, please provide a proper motivation on the talk page.

Note that there are several problems present, for example the introduction states that:
 * "Today's version originated on the island of Gotland, Sweden"

While the History section says:
 * "On Swedish island of Gotland there are many stories of kubb being played in the early 20th century. The game in its modern conception became popular in the 1990s when commercial kubb sets were first manufactured."

One problem being that it's unclear what should be considered "today's form"/"the modern conception". Another problem is that the history section doesn't specify if the commercial production began on Gotland (which would support the introduction's statement) or somewhere else (which would contradict the opening section). But as it stands, neither of these problems are self-contradictions.

--Daniel Dunér (talk) 08:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Game Pieces
The measurements for the pieces seem to be off to me, I actually tried to make a kubb set (in australia where kubb is unknown) based on the measurements listed here and they would have been huge, I ended up halving them to get something even vaguely resembling the photos. the citation link for this section is also dead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pomke (talk • contribs) 01:20, 22 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I came to say the same thing, as I wanted to make a set. While this states the sizes as definitive (e.g. "rectangular wooden blocks 15 cm tall and 7 cm square on the end"), the footnoted source says "1 KING approx. 9×9 cm square and 30 cm´s height." Also here is another source from the US (there is a downloadable PDF) which lists both sizes and weights for the pieces. For the King it lists a min of 8x8x25cm to 9x9x30cm, but interestingly does not list a range for the Kubbs, whereas the current sources does. Perhaps this is just inherent in the game (no definitive size), but I wanted to document what I found and state I think the article is currently misleading about the specifications. Jwhendy (talk) 16:12, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Kubb does not involve strategy
Hello. At first, please excuse my poor english, I am not a native speaker. I have already initiated a change of the same article in the German Wikipedia concerning the "strategic level" that Kubb allegedly has. To make it short: Kubb does not involve strategy in the meaning of "long term planning" of moves or actions. If anything, Kubb might involve tactical play but this assumption is also false. Any webiste that might support the claim that Kubb is strategic and/or tactical, is also wrong. Even the rules in this article, which are correct, make it totally clear that Kubb does not involve one of the two above. There is always an ideal move/throw in Kubb and the player who chooses another move is in mistake. One might claim a very little portion of tactics is involved when players stand on end the Kubbs that were thrown by the other team. But this level of tactics involved here is so very small and actually there is an ideal form either and every variation is a mistake. I have removed the claims from the article. --Lemmaling (talk) 20:31, 2 May 2016 (UTC)


 * There is in fact plenty of strategy, specifically in deciding where to toss field kubbs to. The optimal location all depends on your skill vs. an assessment of your opponent's skill. Do you do a short toss so that it is easier for you to hit, or a long toss so that your opponent will advance less should you miss? Do you go close to the midline or baseline (depending on your answer to the first question) or do you aim for the middle of the half-pitch so there is a smaller chance of the kubb being under-thrown or over-thrown respectively and the opponent having the opportunity to place it? There is no one answer to any of that as it is all situation dependent. Harperska (talk) 01:22, 1 May 2024 (UTC)


 * There is no strategy in my opinion. Expert players toss field kubbs in the right corner, 4m distant, with the drilling technique. If someone tosses field kubb with another strategy it means that he is not competitive. You can check this fact on You Tube, searching for a tournament of some level: see for example this videoFabioVi (talk) 18:01, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Kägelkrig history
The article's current reference puts Kägelkrig at 1911; this earlier reference appears to bring it back to 1878, but I don't read Swedish, so I hope someone else can incorporate this if appropriate. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 00:33, 20 June 2016 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, the article on page 22 of this PDF may also be helpful. Most of it Much of the beginning is pre-20th-century history, which is probably not wrong but is certainly not germane, as he is explicitly writing about games that are not Kubb. However he provides an interesting clue about a 1931 mention in the section Kubb, the first mentoning of the game, as well as (I was surprised to read) a pre-1990 personal testimony in the section Kubb on Gotland. Phil wink (talk) 20:39, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

The Librarians
It seems that the kubb game is featured in the Librarians TV series (2014-), episode S3E3 "And the Reunion of Evil", where Jake challenges a bunch of Swedish convention-goers at Kebnekaise on a game, unbeknownst that they are actually jötnar in disguise. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:19, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

History: German outdoor skittles game "Kaisers", 1800
The book Sammlung von gesellschaftlichen Gartenspielen und ländlichen Vergnügungen, Leipzig 1800, p. 37-39. describes a skittles game for two persons or two teams, played with nine pins (one of them a king). Each team sets up their pins as they like (as long as they are still visible for the other team). The first team gets 3 and the king, the other team 5 pins. Teams alternate trying to hit their opponent's pins by rolling or throwing the ball. A hit pin is thrown into the opposite field and placed there. Link to the digitized book, go to page 37, or copy and paste the following: https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN720539587?tify={%22pages%22:[37],%22view%22:%22toc%22} I don't know if skittles variants like this were common around 1800, but "Kaisers" just reminded me of Kubb... --Jonas kork (talk) 07:23, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Editing Kubb Page
There is a large group of American kubb tournament directors that want to update this page. Most of the data is over 10 years old and needs updating. When updates have been attempted in the past, they are almost immediately deleted. We no understanding of how the process works to edit the page. The main issue is there is little to no news coverage of the sport in America. We have one main source, which is http://www.kubbon.com. So we would need any updates to be cited to articles list on Kubb On? I see lots of edits that have stayed from over 10 years ago that have no citations? Any help/guidance you can give would be extremely helpful as the Kubb Wikipedia page is mostly useless to anyone looking to play kubb. There is no information on where the sport is played, what the current state of the game is, changes to rules, and how to get involved with the many clubs and organizations around the world. This is all very valauble information that is no where to be found here. Fraimo34 (talk) 17:35, 20 March 2024 (UTC)