Author: Rob Askew

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.

Steve returns… Scores Double Whammy!

Steve was our host at the Jannali gamerdome tonight – after putting together a pretty good selection of nibblies he then proceeded to make a spectacular comeback after languishing in the Spoon position since the season kickoff by scoring wins in both Wembley Cup and Sherwood. This has catapulted him up to 5th place, overtaking Louise, Wayne and Ross. The bunched up lower placings are now even more bunched up into a 45 point band. Tara has managed to break her 2-month flatline by the smallest of margins – her 10 points for third in Sherwood, which has allowed Rob to catch up a bit more, there now being only a 20 point gap between 1st and 2nd. Genelle sits in the middle of the gap between 2nd place and The Bunch. Louise and Ross were both absent due to family commitments.

Nicole and GG were the runners up at Wembley – we didn’t even bother to add up Steve‘s winnings so obvious was his stash. In fact we didn’t even bother to play the actual FA Cup final because Steve owned both teams, and we didn’t really need to go through the process of sorting out the auction of one of those teams, the result would have been the same. We did commit an error of dice selection in the semi-final because we failed to play the semis on neutral ground with both teams using the “away” dice, but the consensus was that the result probably wouldn’t have changed.

GG – double whammy in minimum quorum

Minimum Quorum – that was our attendance at the July meeting, just the four of us. Genelle, Louise, Wayne and Rob braved the cold and played in airconditioned comfort at Jannali (except there was no milk in the fridge for a cuppa). Tara was out of town on holiday (it was school hols time), Nicole had a bad sore throat (not Covid we believe), Steve had come down with Covid, and Ross was dealing with his very ill father.

This date was a significant birthday for Genelle, and she brought magnificent home made (by her daughter) cupcakes – we of course sang the requisite HB2U song. Once again Happy Birthday GG. It was in fact Ross’s turn to host, and he supplied nibblies earlier despite being absent for the meet.

The main game That’s Broadway was marred a bit by complex rules that had been significantly updated with hand printed notes from the original as a result of weaknesses that would have come to light during earlier meetings. There were even contradictory statements between two rules. As a result we spent far too much time interpreting rules instead of playing the game. It was won convincingly by Genelle who ended up with about 50% more funds than Wayne in 2nd place.

The backup was old favourite Pass the Pigs – also won by GG in a double whammy which has lifted her from the middle bunch on the scoreboard to within striking distance of Tara and Rob at 1 and 2 on the ladder. I have the piggy score sheet in front of me and it looks like Wayne takes the cake for “pigouts” – 11 out of 14 turns. Everybody else pigged out 6 times out of 14. There’s a reason for this – once Wayne realised he was trailing in the scores he had no choice but to take more risks which of course makes it more likely to go bust, such is the nature of the Pigs.

Tara‘s two consecutive absences have allowed her giant 185 point ladder lead to be whittled down to just 35 points. Just look at the scoreboard – in the middle there’s half the membership squashed into a 10-point wide bunch. Steve is lagging at the bottom not through lack of talent or luck, just through not actually playing games. Come on Steve, we want to see you at the gaming table some time, hopefully in August when you’re the host! (Covid permitting of course)

The Lovelorn Painter Behind The Fridge?

That must be the most obscure News heading we’ve ever had, but stay with me.

On a cold mid-winter evening there were just five of us to enjoy the mayhem – Steve was stuck at work, Tara was away out of town, and Nicole was not well with a sore throat. We played Trivial Pursuit individually (no teams) and finished by the clock with a cheese count to determine the winner (Rob) and a quiz-off for the runners up with Ross beating Louise to 2nd place.

The image above is a very famous American painting by Grant Wood known as American Gothic. One of the trivia questions asked of Genelle by a squinting Ross was “Which lovelorn painter was the artist responsible for American Gothic?” In fact he wasn’t wearing his spectacles, and it should have been “Which Iowa born painter…” hilarity ensued. Then there was the question Louise asked Rob about the title of the classic 60’s comedy revue starring Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller. The correct answer is “Beyond the Fringe”, but Rob’s answer was “Behind the Fridge”. More hilarity – however his answer wasn’t as silly as it sounded, Pete and Dud did in fact have a comedy TV series in the early 70’s called Behind the Fridge, a play on the title of the ground-breaking Fringe show which paved the way for acts like Monty Python and Not The 9 o’clock News.

We finished up with a quick 5 rounds of Uno – not the savage “flip” version, but the much gentler original. Wayne accused a couple of players of failing to say “Uno!” at the appropriate time despite everyone else having heard the call. He did mention that he’d resurrected his hearing aid, but still hadn’t got it working. The sooner the better I say.

Despite Tara being away, she retains a strong 85-point lead over Rob, then there is a 190 point gap to the middle runners Genelle and Ross tied in 3rd place closely followed by Nicole and Louise 10 and 15 points below. Wayne is 35 points below the middle runners with Steve flatlining since March on 50 points.

It was with great glee that Louise announced she has become a grandmother. Congrats from all of us Louise.