Author: Rob Askew

El Prez MIA, Tara leaps further ahead

On a rainy night in Engadine there were just five of us to meet – thanks to Nicole for the hospitality. Louise and Steve were unavailable, and Wayne was recovering from a bout of Covid. Although theoretically at the end of his mandatory isolation, he wasn’t feeling 100% confident to attend meetings.

The games were two new ones introduced by Nicole, and both were well received by those present. The scheduled main game was to be Catan – a teams event, but there being an odd number we reverted to the standby, also a new game, Snakesss. For those not present, here’s a quick description: It involves multiple choice trivia questions, but with a difference:- in each round one random player is a “mongoose”, and two are “snakes”, the rest are “normal humans”. Nobody knows which other players are snakes. When the trivia multiple choice question is read out, the snakes get to see the correct answer. There follows a brief discussion in which the snakes try to talk people into an incorrect answer. The mongoose tries to convince everyone to go for the answer they think is right. Everyone then puts in their token (A, B or C) for their chosen answer. The snakes don’t choose an answer as they already know it, so they put in a snake token. The tokens are then revealed. Snakes get points for all the wrong answers, mongooses get points for right answers, humans get a point if they got the right answer. The scores were close – Tara, Genelle and Ross got 34, 30 and 27 respectively. It seemed that Ross spent most of his turns being a snake rather than a normal human!

The backup game was Hues and Cues, a colour describing game played on a board with 480 squares of different colours. There are many different shades of the basic red, green, yellow and blue gradually shading across the board. On each turn the player draws a card with 4 colours on it, each matching one of the 480 squares. One colour is picked and the player tries to describe that shade with one word, for example “canary” for a shade of yellow. You can’t say the common colours like red, green, blue, etc. You can say things like “shirt” while pointing at a shirt. All the other players then place one token on the shade they think might match the word. The player then gets to say one more word for the same colour. Players then place a second token on a nearby shade indicated by the second word, for example “lighter”. Players get points for how close their tokens are to the actual colour. Rob had the brilliant idea of picking a shade of yellow close to his SBGA shirt, but completely stuffed up by letting everyone see his colour card when comparing it to his shirt. He was allowed to have another turn. At first this game was described by the blokes as “a girl’s game”, because a bloke would describe something as “yellow”, where a woman would say “lemon”, etc etc. However, the placings were Rob (bloke), Tara (non-bloke), Ross (bloke), so go figure.

With two helpings of points Tara has now increased her lead to a frightening 185 points over Rob who leads Nicole by 100 points. The absence of Louise and Wayne helped Genelle overtake both of them into 4th place. Ironically, the only WHP was our host Nicole.

Tara is on fire!

A nice early autumn evening at the Presidential Gamerdome in Jannali saw us depleted a bit – Steve in Covid isolation as a close contact, and Ross expecting a grandchild birth any minute. We hope it all goes well for you guys.

The headline above says it all – it was once again Tara’s night with two lots of points. She won 5 Crowns despite a creditable challenge from Louise. They both scored zeros in 6 of the 11 rounds, and remember zeros are good. On at least two rounds, Tara “went out” before anyone else had even arranged their cards into a neat hand – there was even talk of a steward’s inquiry! Our host Genelle – hmm, it might be kindest to say that the highlight of her performance in both games was the lovely cup of tea with apple Danish served in the break. Better luck next time GG. 5 Crowns is obviously not one of Wayne‘s favourites, but he did get a round of applause when he managed to “go out” without assistance on the very last hand.

Greed was won by Rob but it isn’t clear if he was helped by an unfortunate scoring error. It seems we were incorrectly allowing high scores to be awarded for some combinations that should have been thrown on a single roll. At least the error was applied to all players consistently. Tara got second place in Greed,despite casually rolling an actual $GREED on her very first turn. Nicole managed to avoid WHP by scoring 3rd. So the only WHP scorers (excluding absentees) were Wayne and Genelle.

Finally! Pictionary fans get to play

It was a lovely evening at Tara’s – the rain had stopped, but you could still hear the grass growing! Everybody got some points because it was a teams event (pairs), and with two absentees, Louise and Ross, that left 3 teams for 3 placings. Tara on home turf playing one of her favourites, Pictionary, was on fire, she took her team (me) to the lead early and stayed there. I must have said “you’re good at this!” at least 5 times. At the last square there was no mucking about – quickly answer an “all play” and take home the points, thank you very much. There was at least one serendipitous point for the winners – Tara drew a solid rectangular object, and while waiting for further clues Rob mumbled “rectangular prism” to give it its correct mathematical title, thus accidentally saying the required answer of “prism”. The Steve/Genelle team made a creditable effort, at one point catching up to the leaders, but then got left behind again. The Wayne/Nicole team took quite a while to move off the Start square and were never in the running. At one point when the item to be identified was “penguin”, Wayne rubbished Nicole’s perfect little drawing of a “happy feet” penguin, something at which she is expert, thus revealing the weakest link in that team. We did adopt a supplementary house rule for Pictionary: each player is allowed ONE pass/redraw when encountering a word totally unfamiliar to them.

The backup was Billionaire! also won by Tara. A new record of loss must have been set by Genelle – In 6 deals she was caught with either the Taxman or the Billionaire 4 times, and once ended up with both of them! That’s $240,000,000 penalty points and no winnings at all. Could it be that Mother Theresa was too nice to foist her penalty cards on another player?
That double dose of points for Tara has put her at the top of the table, overtaking Louise, Wayne and Nicole. Rob’s double points (won main, 2nd in backup) has let him overtake 4 players to grab 2nd spot on the ladder. Louise’s absence has cost her dearly – dropping from 3rd to 6th on the table.

Nicole strikes with the old One – Two

A pleasant evening at the Presidential Gaming Palace has seen Nicole get first in the main and second in the backup for 150 points – that takes her from zero to first place in one fell swoop! A double helping of points was also snaffled by Genelle who came 3rd in both games. Ross is now on the scoreboard with his 2nd placing in Gallop, and both Wayne and Louise WHP. Rob won the backup Slam without really trying – given that there is no strategy available, it was simply the luck of the dice. Tara was absent due to a child isolating with Covid, and Steve was attending a family birthday celebration.

Nicole’s win in Gallop was quite convincing despite her betting disaster on the last race. The Tote Clerk (me) opened her envelope last during the final race accounting because she was already in a very strong position, having won ownership money on the two horses that came first and second, and also having bet on both of them – so everyone was waiting to see how big a fortune she was due from her bets. As the envelope was opened, the Clerk jokingly announced “Oh no! The money isn’t correct!” (laughter) Then after checking the envelope contents he said again “Oh no – the money is REALLY not correct!” Nicole had some notes stuck together that resulted in an overpayment of about $200. Mother Theresa (GG) and others immediately came to her aid with suggestions of mitigating circumstances, but the rules document was quite specific about what happens if the cash doesn’t match the betting slip – and poor Nicole had her overpayment forfeited and her bet declared void. But she still won the game! Well done Nicole.

El Prez is in the lead

On a balmy evening at Louise’s place in Illawong overlooking the serene Georges River, Wayne convincingly won Brisk Bizz at our first meeting for 2022. He managed this spectacular victory despite having to interrupt his conversation with other players to roll the dice, then carry on the conversation while his neighbours decided what strategy should be used, moved his token, paid his bills and delivered his income. Perhaps I’m a bit envious, speaking as a long term bankrupt! The only other player to avoid serious bankruptcy was Tara, and it shows on the score line. Wayne’s final score was almost triple Tara’s, and Tara’s was almost double Louise’s. Ross’s initiation into Brisk Bizz was completely devoid of beginner’s luck – he spent the entire game going in and out of bankruptcy court.

Uno Flip was savage wth the “keep picking up cards till you can’t hold them any longer” rule, and strangely the result rankings were split along gender lines, girls in the placings, boys the also-rans. Louise, Genelle, Tara in that order. Once again Ross was devoid of beginner’s luck, and along with Rob scored WHP

We had two absentees, Nicole was under deadline pressure at work, and Steve was being cautious about Covid due to his dealings with multiple residents in aged care.

Grand Final, and a new member – Steve

On a balmy evening in Como it was very pleasant to meet Steve, another rookie who looks like coming back for season 2022 – welcome Steve! He destroyed the usual beginner’s luck phenomenon by amassing an impressive collection of bomb explosions in Pass The Bomb, and also a spectacular last placing in Sherlock – not due to bad luck but a well executed villain arrest by Tara.

As mentioned last month, trophies this year have been replaced by awarding the annual $50 November cash “Beano” prize to the competition winner – that winner turned out to be your Editor and Treasurer, Rob. Nicole was leading the charge after November, but only by a small 10 point margin, so her December WHP allowed both Rob and Louise, both with two placings (75 points each), to overtake Nicole who came 3rd.

Sherlock Holmes was won convincingly by Tara who made some very good arrests, twice earning negative points. In addition to Nicole, Wayne and Steve also WHP. (For the rookies, WHP = Went Home Pointless).

We now have an interesting situation regarding the Wooden Spoon. Excluding any rookies who are protected from the Spoon by rule 7.5, the Spoon contender prior to the December meeting was Genelle, lagging behind Wayne by only 10 points. Since Genelle got 10 points for her 3rd placing in Pass theBomb there is now a tie for the Spoon! We’ll have to decide what happens when we next meet. Perhaps we could just not award the Spoon this year – after all there are no other trophies being handed out.

Lockdown over and 2 newbies come to the meet.

Genelle: “It’s a long way to come to go home pointless”

It was a slightly damp and muggy night at Nicole’s as we gathered to play That’s Broadway and a new card game based on the Sydney suburban train system. We had missed four meetings due to Covid lockdown. The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly the presence of 2 potential new members, one of whom looks like staying on for season 2022. Welcome Ross.

That’s Broadway went well except for almost overlooking the rule that allows a challenge to get out of paying for landing on a production, instead making a takeover bid with a 50% chance of success. Rob was surprised to find he’d won it in the final count with Ross close behind – in fact newbie Ross got a second helping of points in the backup train game. Once again El Presidente showed he leads a charmed life by winning the train game without having the slightest clue of how to play it – I hope he appreciates how much he was helped by other players, especially Nicole who WHP (“went home pointless” for the new guys). Genelle and Tara got points for 3rd place in the two games, while Louise WHP.

Due to having missed a significant part of the competition, it has been agreed that there will be no trophies presented in 2021, and the annual November Beano $50 prize will instead be presented to the overall competition winner in December. The venue for our year end outing is proposed to be Mikes Grill at the Royal Hotel Sutherland on December 20.

Nicole the new leader, El Prez lurches off last place.

On a cold damp night in the absolute middle of winter (it was the solstice after all) we gathered to play Five Crowns and Uno Flip at Nicole‘s place. The aircon was working just fine and a good time was had by all. Wayne mentioned another potential candidate for filling one of our vacancies, someone he knows from Miranda Musical Society – there’s a possibility he may attend the next meeting.

The main game passed without incident – El Prez by his own admission had no idea what was going on till late in the game, just as happened last time it was played, but with much help in arranging his cards he managed to stagger into second place early in the game and stayed there till the end. That turns out to be very handy for him because it lifts him out of the Wooden Spoon position – that dubious honour now belongs to Tara who WHP. The other WHP was Rob who drops to third place, one spot lower than last month. Nicole got two helpings of points by her win in 5C and 3rd in Uno Flip – this makes her the new ladder leader, overtaking Louise who also got two servings of points. Genelle easily won Uno Flip – there was time for only two hands, and she won the first, then followed up by scoring the lowest points of all (other than zero) in the second hand. Note that low points are a good thing in Uno.

Another new game & a member lost

It was a pleasant late autumn evening at Tara‘s, and she wasn’t sure if a log fire was called for or not, so she lit one anyway – and it was very nice. In the preliminary chat before battle commenced it was decided that missing rookie member Jiordan was probably not coming back – Tara had seen something on Facebook that indicated she has now moved to Brisbane. SBGA Charter rule 2.4 has now been invoked (see Constitution), there being more than 3 consecutive meetings missed with no contact. If you’re reading this Jiordy, we know your mum was ill, and we hope you are OK. So we are back to a membership of six with the possibility that Wayne’s bus driver friend may be interested.

The new main game we tried was Phase 10 which was generally well received, and will be added to the roster – it is similar in flavour to Five Crowns. The placings were Tara – Nicole – Louise. Old favourite Billionaire! was backup in which Rob scored a personal best by calling “billionaire!” twice in a row, but it wasn’t enough to best Louise who blitzed the field by getting a 9-card winning hand on the very first round – that’s double your money! The placings were Louise – Rob – Tara. As you can see, Louise bagged two lots of points which has put her on top of the ladder, but only by 25 points. Tara also got two helpings which she badly needed to lift her out of the doldrums and into 3rd place. At present we have the unusual situation of two tied ladder positions with Rob and Nicole on 2nd spot, and Genelle and Tara on 3rd. Genelle and El Presidente both WHP.