Sid Sackson (1920-2002) is considered by many one of the greatest game designers of all time. A civil engineer by training, he devoted his time, later in life, to playing, collecting, and designing games of all kinds. His financial game Acquire was among the first published in the famous 3M bookshelf game series, and it is still in publication. Sackson was also an experienced and enthusiastic gamer himself, and understood the intracacies of writing clear and consise game instructions. In 1980 Crisloid, Inc., a maker of fine chess sets as well as other plastic games and implements, sent Sackson a chess set along with a letter asking him to condense the firm's standard rules for chess along with the "algebraic notations" marked on the chess board.