Author: Rob

Matt gets first Main,
Watergate revived from archives

Once again at the Jannali Presidential Gamerdome, it was a cold evening – aircon required. Seven of us (Steve still detained but expected back soon) played Scattergories and Watergate.

Scattergories was the usual scramble for unusual words with several attempts to get dodgy words past the jury. It’s a game at which yours truly has never excelled, but this time scored a PB by getting 12 points for one round, followed by a lousy 3 points in the following round. The scattering was won by rookie Matt in a tightly scored game – the winning score 53 and last place (no names) just 39.

Watergate has not been aired for years, in fact it seems to have fallen off the official games list, an omission I will soon rectify. Fortunately it is a quite simple game and was quickly picked up by all.

There have been quite a few changes on the leader board, Rob’s WHP has seen him demoted from a brief appearance at the top to 3rd place, overtaken by Louise who was also overtaken by the red hot Tara. Matt has risen out of the middle ranks to be just 50 points below the leaders.

Louise loses lead

Although there was dampness in the air, it was a pleasant night at Louise’s at which our host lost her leading ladder position on home turf. She is now trailing Rob by 10 points with the 2022 champ Tara a further 25 points below in 3rd place. Steve was once again absent due to family illness, and El Presidente was away in a rare absence, mainly due to not liking the game program!

We played Five Crowns as the main game, and look at the image below to see how it played out in the scores – Tara won from Rob by 25 points with Matt in 3rd place. Tara scored zero five times, Rob had four zeros, and Matt had none! Last placed Genelle scored six zeros. That shows it’s not scoring zeros that counts, it’s what’s left in your hand when you don’t score zero.

The backup was Hues & Cues which Louise led for most of the game, building up a lead that looked uncatchuppable (apologies to English teachers for that word, I just couldn’t resist). However, with Louise just 4 jumps from the finish line, Rob did in fact catch up, and overtook her to make the 50 points needed to get to the top of the ladder. Matt also scored a double helping of points with two 3rd placings. With only six players it’s possible for everyone to score points, but alas, with the two boys scoring double points, it left Nicole and Genelle to the ignominy of WHP.

After remarking that Hues & Cues is really a girl’s game with its fine gradings of colour, Rob, half-joking, suggested to Matt that he should name his colour after a drill, such as Makita, which Matt promptly did by giving the clue “Ryobi”. Rob immediately chose a colour that was some distance away from the correct Ryobi colour, even though he owns several Ryobi products, but some women won points in that turn! Excellent idea backfired!

Marathon Pursuit

It was a pleasant evening at Como when seven of us gathered for one of Rob’s favourites – Trivial Pursuit. The missing person was Steve who is still occupied with looking after his mum who is seriously ill. We elected to play the backup game Ride ’em Cowboy first due to the late arrival of Genelle who had just got in from Melbourne, we thought it would be better for her to miss out on the backup rather than the main game. As it turned out she arrived in time enough not to miss any turns in Cowboy. Thanks Christine for picking her up from the station – that’s dedication, GG came straight from the airport to the meeting by train.

Louise won Cowboy by 45 points from Wayne who scored the highest individual ride but not enough to beat Louise’s consistently high scores. Rob scored the 2nd highest individual ride, but had too many hits on “reverse” to catch up, so was the 3rd placed Cowboy. Rookie Matt had never seen Cowboy before, but soon got into it, even being the timekeeper and main scrutineer during other’s ride attempts. At the end of the backup, Nicole left early to get home due to do work she needed to finish before a trip away. That left six of us to play Trivial Pursuit.

We elected to play as individuals (no teams) but with the supposedly shorter version of the game in which every correct answer scores a “cheese”. It didn’t work out that way – we were still playing near 11pm. Tara began receiving panic texts from her daughter wondering why she was so late! Rob had all but given up on winning his fave game when he was on 1 or 2 cheeses with two other players ahead of him on 4 cheeses each, but then a couple of easy questions allowed him to catch up, and in short order he had 6 cheeses for the win without anyone going above 4 cheeses. Wayne and Tara withdrew, Louise got her 5th cheese and 2nd placing, leaving Genelle and Matt in a Quiz-Off for 3rd place. That tie breaker was hard fought, but GG got over the line. All in all it was generally felt that the questions were quite hard compared to previous sessions.

Hues & Cues & Racing Ogres

Seven of us rolled up to Nicole’s place to try out a brand new game – Steve was missing due to his mum being hospitalised with a serious illness, we hope she’s OK Steve.

The new game was one recently invented by a Shire resident known to Nicole – it’s called Racing Ogres – an interesting game of bluff and prediction. You can try playing a fast Ogre but with a greater chance of being locked out by other speedsters, or go slow and steady, your choice. It was popular and I predict it will get picked again. Originally the plan was to use it as the main game with Pass The Pigs as backup, but Nicole’s trial games with her family revealed it would be better as a backup due to its relatively short duration. So it was demoted to the backup position with Hues and Cues featuring as the main game. This is also a popular game which rewards players who can effectively hint at a colour without mentioning any actual colours, so Wayne had everybody scratching heads when he gave a clue of “Elvis!” followed by “Girls girls” – a reference to one of his movies. Apparently Elvis had worn a shirt in that movie that was a particularly memorable shade of blue.

Genelle won Hues and Tara won Ogres, and our newbie Matt got two helpings of points by coming second in both games. Louise got 3rd in the main game,and host Nicole got 3rd in Ogres. Wayne and Rob – sadly WHP.

Next month Trivial Pursuit has been scheduled. Louise pointed out that we should play it with “cheeses” awarded for any correct answer – we’ve done it before. This will shorten the game considerably to avoid running overtime and risk missing the backup game.

Beginner’s Luck fails for new member

On a warm summer night at the Jannali Gamerdome (aka Thomas Holt Village common room) we welcomed new member Matt Green. He was kind of dropped in the deeep end as we went through the convoluted rules for That’s Broadway, a Presidential original, but seemed to grasp the issues as well as – or better than – many of us. Unfortunately he failed to win the attention of whoever administers the supply of beginner’s luck, coming last in both games – a truly scintillating performance! Don’t write him off just yet – I predict he’s good for a 2023 trophy of some sort, probably not made of wood.

Too much time was spent in rule interpretation for Broadway, there are so many corrections you can hardly see the original print. Tara took on the task of reading from the rule page for almost half the game – she’s very patient. It was Louise who won with Tara and Nicole 2nd and 3rd. In fact the sisters also came 2nd and 3rd in the backup.

Five Crowns went much faster, no rule ambiguities here. Wayne was dealt some quite good hands with plenty of wild cards, but his struggle with understanding the concept of wild cards may have deprived him of a much better score. Rob and Tara battled for the win with El Trez getting the 50 points despite scoring half as many “zero” hands.

Our game host Genelle supplied some very nice nibbles and hot beverages, but unfortunately scored WHP along with Matt and Wayne.
There was one absentee – Steve was still away on holiday.
February could be very interesting as our host Nicole will introduce a brand new game calld Racing Ogres – intriguing, a quick internet search reveals that the game has been developed by a Shire resident.

Tara wins, Steve most improved

On a balmy late spring evening at the Jannali Gamerdome it was the expected outcome – our game host Tara won the championship for 2022. She finished 70 points ahead of Rob who was 105 points ahead of Genelle. Never have we seen a player so nervous about cementing her place at the top of the ladder as Tara – she was sick with anticipation, and told us her kids wanted to be woken up and told the result if she won – so wakey wakey kids!
The graph shows that Steve was the most improved player, rising up to 4th place from Wooden Spoon position that he held from the start of play until July, so it was fitting that Steve was the winner of the annual Beano award of $50 cash, the traditional year end prize for a main game win. The Wooden Spoon this year goes to Louise who was only five points below Ross on the ladder. Wayne Louise and Nicole were all recipients of WHP, and Ross was absent.

The main game Sherlock Holmes went off without problems, but a detailed reading of the rules by Rob revealed that we’ve been doing the initial deal incorrectly for many years. It seems that on the deal, only one villain is included. Previously we have dealt out cards which included at least one villain with the possibility of multiple baddies being distributed. Only a minor point, but we like to do it right don’t we gamers?
Billionaire! was up to its normal fun level with Rob scoring a personal best, getting three Billionaire calls. Genelle got two and steve got one, and that’s how the placings went. Tara got four penalties offset by one Billionaire, and Louise also got four penalties, but no actual wins.

Don’t forget the Annual Dinner at Taren Point Bowlo (203 Holt Rd) at 7pm on Monday 28 November – there are trophies to be had.

Tara’s heading for the win

Another night at the Jannali Gamerdome – this one a bit damp, as is most of the eastern side of the country. Wayne was hosting and Genelle supplied a mini birthday cake for El trez who had celebrated it the previous day – thanks GG.

Look at the scoreboard – it has now definitely morphed into something we’ve not quite seen before. The three potential trophy winners fighting it out at the top of the ladder, then a large gap of 335 points to the also-rans lumped together in a 35 point band. It looks like the number 1 trophy is almost in the bag for Tara with only an outside chance of being overtaken by Rob, and another outside chance of Genelle overtaking Rob. At the other end of the scoreboard, a late run by two or three of the also-ran group could see The Spoon go to any one of them.

We played one of the El Prez originals, Musicopoly, in which players act as entertainment booking agents getting gigs for their performers. It has not been played for some years, and a weakness in the game strategy was revealed which somehow hadn’t been noticed previously – or possibly just forgotten. It concerned the idea af an act getting a residency at a particular venue – the rules not conferring any advantage on the agent owning the residency if an act he didn’t own turned up to play there. Our work-around was to allow residencies to be dumped at any time, as the other disadvantage was that an act with a residency was locked in to the venue and couldn’t play anywhere else. We think it should be fixable with a couple of rule changes. Rob won Musicopoly convincingly, mainly luck by not scoring any huge bills. Louise was ashamed of herself for scoring the only WHP despite there being only five players present. Nicole had urgent work commitments, Ross was ill and heading for a Covid test, and Steve was celebrating his wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary Steve!

The backup game Pass The Bomb went off with much fun as usual – won by Tara.

November is the month of the Beano prize – $50 cash to the main game winner, so get your deerstalker hats ready for the Sherlock Holmes extravaganza. Also in November we need to start thinking about finalising dues payments. I’ve made a guess at what the trophies will cost and a rough estimate shows that those owing back dues are Louise ($1.42), Steve ($21.74), Nicole ($21.73) and Tara ($13.63). You will all get an email with more exact figures as soon as final costs are known. The current plan for our annual dinner is December 5, to be finalised soon.

Tara leaps ahead

With only two meetings until season’s end we’re starting to see the shape of the ladder at trophy time – just look at the graph. The three front runners are well above the bunched up rest of the pack – “the rest” are squished together inside a 50-point band centred around 210 points which is 360 points behind the leader. Tara‘s almost flat score line over the previous three months allowed Rob to catch up to within 20 points, but tonight that changed with Rob’s WHP and Tara’s double helping of points, and then Genelle‘s 100 point win in Word Power pushing her into 2nd spot, but only by a margin of 10 points. The only other change of positions is where Louise overtakes Steve, but there’s only 5 points between them. So it’s starting to look like Tara for champion with Genelle and Rob fighting it out for 2nd and 3rd spot. The other WHP was El Presidente who is currently in Wooden Spoon territory, but that could change a couple of times within the closely spaced bottom of the pack between now and trophy presentation time. Nicole is the best of “the rest”, but not by much. Steve was a no-show due to late work attendance.