Author: Rob Askew

Horses meet Slapzi

Back at the Jannali Gamerdome on a cold and wet August night there were six of us competing with three of us experiencing the dreaded WHP. Louise was doing family stuff, and Nicole was back in the ACT. Tonight’s host was Peter.

The scoring:-
Matt: won main and backup
Tara: 2nd in main and backup
Rob: 3rd in main and backup.
The gap between 1st (Tara) and 2nd (Matt) on the scoreboard has narrowed from 170 to 95 points. Rob has slipped past the tied former 3rd placeholders (Genelle & Louise) to lead them by only 15 points, and down about 150 points at the bottom of the pack are Wayne, Peter and Nicole fighting it out for the Spoon.

The ever popular Gallop was the main game, with Slapzi making an appearance after several years in the wilderness. Matt and Tara slugged it out taking turns at the lead with everyone else tagging along until those two were declared first and second placegetters, then Rob won the decider by scoring a single point. It was a fun game.

Phase 10 & Yahtzee

On a cool clear night mid-winter at Tara‘s place there were six of us. Peter was still out of the country, and Louise was not well and stayed home. It was nice to see the return of Nicole, but she retired just before game completion also not feeling well. We hope you both feel better soon. There was good news from Nicole who announced she would be moving back to Sydney from the A.C.T. early in 2026.

Tara‘s main game choice Phase 10 was a bit daunting at first due to its unfamiliarity, but Tara did a good job of explaining the rules and we soon got into the swing of it. Even El Prez managed reasonably well considering the game’s similarity to Five Crowns which he does not enjoy at all. Tara won by a large margin with Rob 2nd and Genelle 3rd.
The old favourite Yahtzee was the backup – scored on our own “Nicole enhanced” score sheets and won by Genelle with Matt 2nd and Tara 3rd.
So both Tara and Genelle got two helpings of points with Nicole and Wayne WHP. It was interesting to see the game that Matt dug out of his collection thinking it was an old edition of Yahtzee – it turned out to be Word Yahtzee. It looks very similar to the normal game but with seven dice containing letters and other symbols instead of numbers. Could it be worth exploring for a future SBGA appearance?
Tara has now increased her competition lead with 110 points won tonight, now 170 points clear of Matt, then a 50 point gap to Genelle and Louise tied on 250. Nicole and Wayne are also tied on 110. Pete is only 10 points down from them in Spoon territory, so not a great gap to get over to avoid that Spoon.

From Pigs to Billionaires

We were at the Easton residence overlooking Georges River which we couldn’t see as it was the day after winter solstice, so quite cool and dark after an early sunset. There were six in attendance – Nicole sent her regards from the ACT and Wayne went to a birthday party for someone at his residence. It wasn’t a hard decision for him to miss the meeting as he has proclaimed how much he doesn’t enjoy Five Crowns (our main game).
Our host Louise made a last minute decision (with members agreement) to change the backup game from Pass the Pigs to Billionaire! This turned out to be a wise move as she was successful on her home turf winning two helpings of points – 1st in Five Crowns, and 2nd in Billionaire. She has shot up to 3rd place past Rob, and is now only 25 points below Matt who tonight WHP after a crushing last place in Crowns and second last in Billionaire. This defeat also allowed Tara to increase her leading margin after her 50-point 2nd place in Crowns. Genelle has almost caught up with Rob, and Pete got some points which puts him within 10 points of overtaking Wayne and Nicole in order to escape the Wooden Spoon position.
Thanks Louise for the tasty home baked goodies we had in the tea break.

Trez gets the Triv

It was a wet and chilly evening at Como, but we were cosy enough with the central heating set at 22°C, and thankfully Daisy the Beagle decided there was nothing edible at the table so took herself off to bed. The only absentee was Nicole – still in the A.C.T.
There was no surprise that El Trez won his favourite – Trivial Pursuit – but only with a late run after trailing Matt and Genelle for most of the game. We played the shortened version of TP in which every correct answer wins a “cheese”, but with a compromise that only the first four cheeses can be easily grabbed in that way – the last two must be gained in the conventional way by answering a question while on a main cheese location. It came down to a sudden death showdown between Trez and Genelle, both sitting with six cheeses on the centre of the board. There was a degree of dice luck involved in the Trez win – he happened to roll a six immediately after gaining his 6th cheese which put him on the centre with Genelle at precisely the right time. It could have taken several turns to land on that spot by which time Genelle would have won and gone home. Over all Genelle did quite well in winning two helpings of points and advancing from last up to equal 4th with Louise. Tara (who hates Trivia) and Matt are still more than 100 points clear of the rest of us, but the gap between them has narrowed from 50 down to 35 points. Trez missed an important cheese at one point by failing to remember the name of the band that played “Zombie”, despite having rehearsed and played that song several times at his weekly Jam night.
The backup game was Pass the Bomb which, due to the limited time available, resulted in several tied scores with the minor placings being decided by dice-off after the win by Genelle. It became evident that Pete does not perform well under the pressure of holding a ticking bomb and being watched by the rest of us, in fact I think he said at one point “I’m going to be off sick next time someone picks this game”. Pete and Wayne were this month’s WHP victims.

Tara leaps ahead, El Presidente wins backup

Despite much visible lightning and thunder out at sea, at Tara‘s in Yowie Bay it was a balmy night with all of us at the table. It was Nicole‘s turn to host and she picked Uno Flip as backup and what was originally called Six Second Scribble as the main – we’ve since lengthened it to Three Minute Scribble as most of us aren’t as graphically talented as our host.

Scribble was very well received – everyone loved it. Unsurprisingly Nicole led for most of the game with Tara and Louise close behind, but Tara won by a nose on the last round with Nicole and Louise in the minor placings.

Uno Flip was a hoot with Wayne fumbling his way to the win – well done WT. On the very first round Rob set a new “personal worst” by scoring 255 points (remember low scores win) which nobody thought would ever be worsened – until Louise managed 402 points on the very last hand which took her from 2nd place to last place in one hit! She was juggling what seemed like half a pack of cards in her hand. Peter and Nicole scored the minor placings.
Check out the image below – a picture of the Uno Flip score sheet showing our fall from grace.

Those who WHP tonight were Genelle, Matt and Rob. Look at the competition graph and see that Tara is in the lead by 50 points fr0m Matt, then there’s the rest of the also-rans. Wayne and Nicole are tied in 3rd place.

Finally – the champ WHP!

It was a cool evening at Como, the day following a monster heatwave, and there were seven gamers to play Sherlock Holmes and Greed. Nicole was the only absentee, but perhaps we’ll see her in April. My apologies for the marauding doggie called Daisy who usually gives everyone a good sniff then takes herself off to bed – I think this time the smell of popcorn was the reason she continued to sniff. Eventually we used the gate that normally deters her from sneaking upstairs to confine her to upstairs instead.

The scoreboard shows that Matt has finally come to the end of his winning streak by scoring a WHP. His phenomenal February winning margin has now been reduced from 175 to a more digestible 50 points. This reduction is entirely due to Tara getting a double helping of points by coming first and second in the main and backup respectively. So now there is Matt still at the top, with a 50 point gap to Tara, then a big 125 point gap to the rest of the pack. It was good to see Pete win Greed – I believe that’s his first win since his rookie start last year. Wayne and Genelle both scored placings in Sherlock, and Louise was the only other WHP apart from Matt.

Genelle took us by surprise with her announcement that she might have to consider resigning due to the possibility her family commitments might make it hard to get to games, especially when it’s her turn to host. There were unanimous howls of protest that it should be possible to work around the situation, and we hope those protests will cause her to reconsider – we don’t want to lose Mother Theresa!

Another double whammy for the champ.

After a damp and stormy day the clouds had retreated in time for our Feb meet at Como. We were all aboard for this one, no absentees.
First it was Five Crowns – remember; “It’s not over till the Kings go wild”. El Prez is completely flummoxed by this game and had to rely on his neighbours (mainly Mother Theresa) to help, but he managed to hold down a potential third placing until the very last hand, you know, the one where the kings go wild? He was overtaken into 3rd place at the last minute by Nicole who was at or near the lead for much of the game. The winner was of course the former rookie (and current champ) Matt followed by Louise.
The backup game was Scattergories in which, just to rub it in, Matt won again! This time it was Tara in 2nd place with a Roll-off between Wayne and Louise to break the tie for 3rd. Unluckily for Louise the roll-off went to Wayne. Your treasurer managed to score a PW (personal worst) by coming last in both games. The other WHP victims were Peter and Genelle. Pete had just returned from a couple of weeks in the UK and was not up to his normal standard – he was in the grip of the dreaded jet lag.
So have another look at the competition scoreboard graphic – it’s Matthew on 250 with his nearest rivals Louise and Tara tied on only 30% of his score! We must put a stop to this at the first opportunity.

Nicole returns & Matt hits the ground running

In a very pleasant evening at the Jannali gamerdome, there were once again all eight of us in attendance – welcome back Nicole! One task left over from last year that we did tonight was to present the new perpetual trophy to the 2024 Champ – congrats Matt.

It was Wayne‘s turn to host and he chose a bit controversially. The backup was Sea Spray – a simple toss-die-and-move-piece game built by Wayne with a Sydney-Hobart yacht race theme. It was harder than it looked to get ahead and fortunes changed rapidly. Matt shot to the lead early, but then kept hitting “reverse” squares and got stuck in the middle of the pack for most of the game – a direct quote from him: “This is the worst game I’ve ever played!”. Pete also fared very badly, but it was the sisters Tara and Nicole who crossed the finish line first in quick succession followed by Rob a few moves later.

The controversy was Wayne’s selection of Monopoly: Rugby World Cup as the main game. The standard version of Monopoly has long been unlisted in our games repertoire due to reasons that you all know – i.e; it takes too long, and players must sit out the later stages of the game as they become bankrupt. Indeed, the object of thegame is to be the last one to NOT be bankrupt. The Rugby version is no different, but fortunately there are options for shortening the game that we employed – a time limit and a simple assets total to determine the winner. We also adopted another external house rule which was new to me – penalties that would normally go to the bank are kept aside in a jackpot to be grabbed by anyone who lands on Free Parking. The game was starting to develop, with some wheeling and dealing and properties changing hands and grandstands on the way to being built, then time ran out.
So it turned out to be more successful than we thought, and maybe even the long-dismissed standard Monopoly might get a turn if we can play the shortened version. What do you think?
So Matt is still on top of the ladder, and trailing by 40 and 50 points are Rob and Tara who won Monopoly. Louise and Nicole are tied on 25, and it was Genelle, Peter and Wayne who WHP.