In Black and White: A GIPF Project Series, Part II: ZÈRTZ

When I was a kid in the 1970s, there were...

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I own this one for many years, the large marbles have been used by many children over the years for everything but playing Zertz. Several of the black ones have been replaced with black D12s

That actually might be a cool idea. You can place the d12 as the number of black marbles that have been played (so, first one is '1', next one is '2', etc.)

I really like Zertz, but it usually devolves into a (nearly) solitaire game where one player attempts to win via forced moves. This is a really enjoyable puzzle for that player, but tedious for the other.

I went through that phase with another regular player a few years back. After a while, we both learned that there were other approaches that we could be taking that were less direct and, therefore, might not be seen by the opponent; much like Go. It just ended up being a more enjoyable half hour for the two of us than the "forced" approach which was kind of a rush to the end. Fair point, though.