Tsuro is one of my all-time favorite board games.

Ever since I first saw it played on Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop YouTube series, I was hooked. I bought my own copy a year later, and for over a decade, it has been in regular rotation on board game nights. I’ve included it in every Holiday Puzzly Gift Guide since I started the blog.

Tsuro is a beautiful, simple game that only takes about twenty minutes to play. You can play with as few as two players or as many as eight. It can be the centerpiece of a game night or the perfect palate cleanser after a more stressful round of another game.

In Tsuro, each player adopts the role of a flying dragon soaring through the sky. Players choose from the tiles in their hands in order to build paths on the board, representing their paths through the sky.

Naturally, these paths will eventually intersect, and you need to be careful to avoid colliding with another dragon or following a path right off the edge of the board. (Both of those scenarios cause you to lose.)

And despite the potential for competitive gameplay, I’ve found most Tsuro games to be peaceful affairs, each player watching their dragon token loop and swirl across various intersecting paths, hoping to be the last one standing on the board.

Calliope Games, the publishers of Tsuro, are celebrating 20 years of dragon-soaring gameplay this year. And not only are they releasing a special 20th anniversary edition of the game, but they’re hosting a celebration at this year’s Gen Con: the First Annual Tsuro National Championship!

On Saturday August 1st, players will convene in Hall D at 6 PM, competing in two preliminary rounds before those with the highest scores advance to the finals.

The winner will receive this gorgeous Limited Edition version of the game (valued at $350, the Luxury edition!), and every participant will receive a copy of the new 20th anniversary edition (pictured above, which also looks beautiful).

You can click here to reserve your seat and compete! I’m bummed I won’t be able to attend, but I’ll probably be picking up a copy of that 20th anniversary edition for my shelf (to sit alongside the other four editions of the game I have).

And yes, they ALL get played.

Good luck to everyone competing! And here’s to many more years of Tsuro and the spirit of gameplay it represents.

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So, to mark this lovely anniversary, I’ve got a little puzzly challenge for you.

How many words (five to seven letters long) can you make that include all the letters in TSURO at least once? And let’s exclude plurals to keep it manageable.

I came up with 22 words. Can you top that?

And while I’m asking questions, what board game offer your best chance to compete for a national championship, fellow player? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.