10. Havannah

I bet Havannah would be alot more popular if it had little pastel camels on the board, instead of little black and white discs. Honestly, this game deserves to be just as popular as a game like Through the Desert. In fact, TtD only edges it out in my list because of its modular board and multi-player ability.

Unlike TtD, Havannah is an actual connection game -- the finest in my opinion. Christian Freeling took the legendary game of Hex and, quite remarkably, improved it. The multiple winning conditions add little to the complexity while adding a considerable amount of depth and tension to the proceedings. If Hex is your basic black-and-white connection game, Havannah is the color version.

Like many abstract games, you can easily increase (or decrease) the depth by changing the size of the board. I have the eight-sided Ravensburger board pictured above, but the brainiac-types get more mileage out of larger boards.

I haven't quite made it to that point. Eight sides has me fully engrossed for now.