An abstract strategy game is a strategy game that minimizes luck and does not rely on a theme. Almost all abstract strategy games will conform to the strictest definition of: a gameboard, card, or tile game in which there is no hidden information, no non-deterministic elements (such as shuffled cards or dice rolls), and (usually) two players or teams taking a finite number of alternating turns.

Many of the world's classic board games, including chess, Nine Men's Morris, checkers and draughts, Go, xiangqi, shogi, Reversi, and most mancala variants, fit into this category. Play is sometimes said to resemble a series of puzzles the players pose to each other. As J. Mark Thompson wrote in his article "Defining the Abstract":

Definition

The most strict definition of an abstract strategy game requires that it cannot have random elements or hidden information. In practice, however, many games that do not strictly meet these criteria are commonly classified as abstract strategy games. (Games such as Continuo, Octiles, Can't Stop, and Sequence, could be considered abstract strategy games, despite having a luck or bluffing element.) A smaller category of non-perfect abstract strategy games manages to incorporate hidden information without using any random elements. (The best known example is Stratego.)