Duke grad's gaming website offers new spin on old classics

Q: What do DESERTGRANNY541, El Ganador, and PHAT ELVI§ have in common?

A: They are all devotees of a website called ItsYourTurn.com.

Not much to look at, but with 2,000,000+ registered accounts in dozens of countries ItsYourTurn is the largest, most vibrant turn-based gaming site on the web. Great, but why does this matter to you? Because it is the brainchild of Duke graduate Patrick Chu. And it is based right here in Dear Old Durham.

After graduating from Trinity College in 1988, Patrick traveled coast to coast as a consultant on large database projects to companies like AT&T. When life on the road grew dismal, and it did rather quickly, he looked to settle down. Remembering fondly his days at Duke, he returned to the area in April of 1998 to launch ItsYourTurn.com which he describes as “one big, fun database problem.” Utilizing his database skills he created ItsYourTurn to get the enjoyment of board games at work without the pieces sprawled out in the middle of the office.

You might ask why you should visit ItsYourTurn.com any more than you watch Duke grad Charlie Rose’s PBS talk show (once for like a second because I thought it was the Daily Show) or patronize alumna Dylan Lauren’s candy store on 3rd Avenue in Manhattan (over the summer when I was craving some Abba Zabbas). For starters, ItsYourTurn has a total of 70 variations of 11 games including checkers, Chinese checkers, backgammon, and versions of Scrabble and Stratego (sadly, no Guess Who? or Girl Talk). What's more, IYT gives you an easy way to play with friends and family from whom you are geographically removed. In contrast to sites like Yahoo! Games and Games.com, you and your opponent need not be logged on at the same time to play. You simply make your move and then are alerted via e-mail to move again once your opponent has done so himself. For games requiring extensive contemplation, you’ll save the time you would have spent watching the wheels turn in your opponent’s head.

Perhaps the most celebrated feature of ItsYourTurn is the ability to carry on a dialogue with each move. Whether you are trying to clear up some paternity issues over a game of Go, or planning a clandestine rendezvous between moves in Chinese Chess, you won’t have to worry about it getting in the way of a busy schedule. With an inexplicable yet convenient feature, you can also find your local 5-day weather forecast on-site. Looking ahead, Chu plans to add more social functions to IYT similar to those found on Friendster and thefacebook. Mobile phone access to IYT is also on the horizon.

ItsYourTurn allows you to make as many as 25 moves a day with no charge. For a monthly fee of as little as $2.50, members can play up to 200 games at once and are freed from banner ads.

Never growing to more than four employees in their lone office, Patrick has created a small business making a big impact. Maybe this is a story of a man succeeding by doing what he loves, or maybe it’s just a guy who wanted to find a way to play chess at work without the boss finding out.