Author: Rob

Louise continues winning streak

The main game was host Rob‘s favourite – Trivial Pursuit, but he only just scraped into 3rd place in a double quiz-off against Tara, and then only because the final question was Beatles related. Everyone agreed that the questions seemed harder than usual. We adopted a new playing method in an effort to avoid the “3 teams plus one solo” that occurs when an odd number attend. Rather than one playing solo (which is unpopular with some), at Louise’s suggestion we opted to play individually, but with the rules altered to the shorter version of the game by awarding a “cheese” every time a correct answer is scored.
Louise continued her winning streak after her double whammy of June by winning Trivial, so she is now further ahead – increasing her 15 point lead by 100 points. Genelle came 2nd, and Tara made up for being quizzed out of the placings in Trivial by winning Uno Flip. Louise got another helping of points by coming 2nd in Uno, and Mark finally scored a few points by coming 3rd in Uno. This brings him back to where he was in May before the ignominious shirt penalty of June took 10 points off his score. He was not a happy camper in Trivial, failing miserably in the cheese department due to sheer bad luck. Louise on the other hand remarked it was the most enjoyable game of TP she had ever had. WHP victims tonight were Nicole and Wayne.

New Leader – Louise takes Trez’s advice and wins.

It was a cold, damp night at Illawong, but the aircon kept us comfy as we played Word Power. Louise’s plan was to hold back in the lower educational institutions with easier questions to more quickly amass points to graduate to University, then make a rush for the finish, but she was strongly advised against this by El Trez sitting next to her – just go for the finish he said. She wisely took that advice and beat him into second place as a result! There was a crowd scene at the board finish line as Rob, Mark, Genelle and Wayne jostled for second and third places – the Zarubin sisters Tara and Nicole were languishing in High School while this was going on. Rob eventually scraped into 2nd and Genelle made it into an uncatchable end position as we called off the final questions and awarded her third place.

The time had flown by as we started the backup game late, so it didn’t really get a good airing. This was a shame because it is a brand new game – a Uno variant called Uno Flip. So that we can get a better go at it, it will be on the program again in July. The single round we had was won by Louise, thus giving her a double whammy of points which overtakes Rob to put her at the top, but only by 15 points. Take a look at the score graph on the front page – there’s the two fighting it out at the top, then a 110 point gap to Tara at 3rd, then a 50 point gap to the middle bunch in a 30-point grouping, then we come to Mark – a sorry story, his already low graph line goes downhill this month due to a dress code violation; he forgot his SBGA shirt! This hasn’t happened for quite some time, excluding extenuating circumstances such as pregnancy for example. Due to both Louise and Genelle getting double doses of points, there were four WHP victims this month.

Genelle’s “Silly Game” a hit.

Genelle was our host at the Presidential Games Room at Jannali, and she brought lots of goodies – not only a table groaning with edibles, but also two new games. There was Uno Flip, a new variant of the old favourite, which is now donated to the official SBGA collection, thanks GG. It is scheduled to be played at the June meet. Then there was tonight’s secondary game – a game with no fixed name, hence it’s generic title of “Silly Game”. According to Genelle it takes its title from the most memorable or amusing phrase that occurred last time it was played – in this case, John Howard’s Eyebrows. It was a hit for the majority of players, but El Prez found it hard to take in, although he really excelled at the Charades segment, so he’ll probably grow to like it eventually. John Howard’s Eyebrows was won in fine style by Tara, who scored more than double the points of second placed Louise, with Genelle in third place.

The main game was Sherlock Holmes, for which Rob took home tonight’s prize of a Monopoly variant. This was mainly due to sheer luck – by playing a Sherlock card on Tara with no incriminating evidence other than her holding a large hand, and capturing TWO villains at once (this may also have had something to do with Tara coming last). Wayne made second place with a successful arrest, as did Louise in third place.
Tonight’s WHP was Mark, who is looking decidedly Spoonish now that we’re almost halfway through the year. Nicole was absent due to family commitments.

Note that we clarified a potential playing strategy in Sherlock as probably legal because the rules have nothing specific to say about it being compulsory to play a card held before resorting to the pickup pile. For example, if the next card to be played is “Location or Thick Fog”, and you have only Thick Fog that can be played, and you have no villain cards, and don’t want to risk acquiring one in the re-shuffle resulting from a Thick Fog, then it is legal to pick up a card instead of playing the Fog card.

El Trez back on top, but…
That’s Broadway needs work

Once again we gathered at Nicole’s for Tara’s hosting turn (Tara’s house is in pieces, under renovation) – thanks Nicole. The SBGA graffiti I left on the blackboard wall in March was still in place!
We played That’s Broadway, and although we’ve played it previously, it soon became evident that the game requires some serious tweaking to make it more even. El Trez won it by a large margin, but more than half the players were severely handicapped for most of the game by not having a full set of “essentials”, and according to the rules, unable to collect income. In fact, the game became so unbalanced that we opted to finish it early. There were several suggestions for improvement, including a reduced income for missing essentials, instead of zero income, and the opportunity to choose needed essentials when landing on the “add essential” square, rather than take the random card from the top of the deck.
El Prez plans to implement some improvements.

The backup was old fave Billionaire! – Won by Tara. Two lots of points were won by Louise – a 3rd and a 2nd placing. Genelle got 3rd in Billionaire! Last month the Z sisters were in a tie at the top of the table, and they both scored 50 points tonight, so Nicole & Tara remain in a tie on 200, but Rob has sneaked past to reclaim the top spot by a mere 10 points, so no surprises if he gets knocked off that perch again in May. The WHP’s tonight were Wayne and Mark.

Genelle has once again done her thing of introducing new and interesting games to the club by picking a game for May that is somewhat quirky – it has no fixed title! She tried to explain it by saying it has elements of Charades and Pictionary, but left it at that – all will be revealed at the next meet. For want of a better title, we’re calling it Silly Game. I for one am quite intrigued. If it goes pear-shaped (unlikely according to GG), she is trying to source a new variant of the old favourite Uno, called Uno Flip. Read about it HERE, sounds quite interesting.

The Sisters Zarubin Dominate

Nicole has pulled off an impressive feat – in one meeting scoring a double whammy – winning both Hey Presto! and Pass the Pigs to go from ZERO points to 150, or to put it more graphically – from SPOON to LEADER in one fell swoop. To top it off, Tara also got points for 2nd in Pigs, that puts her in joint first place with her sister. It was Girls Night Out this month, every bloke scored a WHP, every girl got points. The league table is looking very bunched up, with the Z sisters sharing the lead, Louise 25 points behind at 2nd, and 15 points below that, a three way tie for 3rd between Genelle, Rob and Wayne. It’s still anybody’s game – although Mark is in Spoon position, he’s only one main game win away from 2nd spot.

Tara goes to the Top,
El Prez scores in both games

We met at Mark’s on a very pleasant evening to play Reno Casino and Yahtzee. Genelle proposed a rule change for Reno, and it was trialled but seems to have not won the approval of most members. Mark had a shiny new edition of Yahtzee for us to play – the dice came stored in a special container that doubled as the dice shaker and was hard to open, and when he did eventually get it open with brute force, the dice fell out on the floor.

El Prez was quite chuffed to win Reno – and then also got points for 3rd place in Yahtzee. The current champ, El Trez, was knocked off his perch by scoring a big fat WHP, allowing Tara, who was only 35 points away from the top, to lead the pack by 15 points with Rob and Wayne tied for 2nd place. Louise and Genelle are also tied in 3rd spot, only 40 points off the lead. Our host Mark scored points by coming 2nd in Yahtzee, but Nicole remains scoreless. She was absent from the meet due to work commitments, but plans to score big in March when she will host.

At I write this, we still haven’t found a replacement for Gill – be on the lookout people for potential players.

(Postponed to February 4)

Gill Resigns – Welcome Nicole

In a decision that must have been very hard to make, Gill has resigned due to family commitments. We are all very sad to see her go, and hope that one day, priorities permitting, she might re-surface and win that game of Pictionary that she was so keen to have. It was a pleasure to welcome back Nicole who has had a year off – also due to family commitments – and has replaced Jordan who left at the end of 2018. It seems we are now looking to fill another vacancy.

The January meeting (postponed to Feb 4) was held in air conditioned comfort at the Presidential games room – our host Gill was MIA for reasons already mentioned. The main game was Smart Ass, and we modified it a bit by doing two laps of the board due to it being a bit short with only a single lap. El Trez led for much of the game, hotly chased by Tara right up to a few moves before the end when she stalled and was overtaken by Louise to snatch 2nd place.

Old favourite Uno was the backup, won in fine style by Tara with Genelle 2nd and El Trez 3rd by only 3 points. So all the points were won by four players with Mark, Wayne and Nicole all WHP.

A recurring theme at the meeting was El Prez’s hearing impairment – it is becoming obvious that he is actually missing out on game points by failing to hear what is going on in games. I think he mentioned that he has an appointment to check his hearing – we wish him well and hope that it results in an improvement that will allow him to compete without the ear handicap.