Category: Meeting report

Louise – most improved player

Louise won Trivial Pursuit convincingly with 5 cheeses, very pleased with herself for beating Rob on his home ground – he left his run far too late and was lucky to make it to 2nd place with 4 cheeses shortly before the time limit.  Mark came in 3rd with 3 cheeses.  It’s worth noting that Louise finished last season on 85 points with the Spoon, and here it is only February and she’s already at 150 in 2nd place.  I doubt the Spoon will be spending a second season at Illawong.
The new backup game Digit was a success, placings Rob – Tara – Genelle.  So the ladder positions are chaged only by who is tied with whom – Mark has caught up to Gill, Tara has caught up to Genelle, and the Thomas father & son duo are fighting it out in a nil-all draw at the bottom of the table.
The only WHP scorers were those who weren’t there; Wayne came down with a tummy problem and stayed home, hope you feel better soon El Prez.  Gill attended an award ceremony at which her mum was being honoured, and the elusive Jordan is having terrible problems at his flat which has been invaded by some kind of bug infestation, he’s looking for alternate accommodation.

New record – TWO pregnant gamers!

First of all, big congratulations to Gill on her successful IVF implant – she is expecting a baby boy in 6 months or so. With a heavily pregnant Tara also in attendance, we have two simultaneous special dispensations in force for rule 7.8.1 violations. Remember during Tara’s previous pregnancy we amended the wording at rule 7.8 to say “Unless there are extenuating circumstances as decided by the membership at the time” to allow temporarily shape-altered women to avoid shirt penalries.

The 2018 season got off to a bit of a slow start with everyone re-learning Sherlock Holmes as if we’d never played it before. At one point when Wayne urged everyone to play faster (“C’mon, a fast game’s a good game!” he said), Rob replied with “Do the words pot, kettle and black ring any bells for you?” El Prez was rewarded with a WHP score for this month.
It seems we always need to have the Sherlock rules handy when we play, so those rules will soon be available via a link on the Games List page, and Gill suggested we might keep multiple printouts of the most looked-up pages in the package with the game. Good idea Mrs Wilson.

Tara seemed to be under the spell of pregnancy hormones and not playing up to her usual standard, although she did manage 3rd in Slapzi. Those hormones haven’t kicked in for Gill yet, she scored 50 points for 2nd in Sherlock which was won by Rob. Louise was not feeling 100% but soldiered on and made a good start in her quest to rid herself of the dreaded Spoon by winning Slapzi – a new game introduced by Genelle. Speaking of new games, Genelle gave us a quick preview of another new one called Digit which will be played as a backup at Rob’s in February. Mark also scored points by getting 3rd place in Sherlock. Our new member Jordan was not in attendance, SBGA was trumped by the Australian Open tennis at which he is a spectator. We hope to meet him in February.

Mother Theresa wins the Grand Final

It was just as exciting as promised – with 75% of us within reach of the Championship it was bound to be a corker. Genelle retained the lead she grabbed in October, she won the new game Dumb Ass – well done Mother Theresa, her first Championship. Tara won the main game Brisk Bizz and also got 3rd in the backup – those 110 points were enough to overtake 3 players and get her the runner-up trophy, well done Tara. Gill scored 50 points by coming 3rd in the main event and 2nd in the backup – this was enough to retain her slim 5-point lead over Rob who also scored 50 points, and get her the 3rd place trophy. Nicole would have been another contender, but alas, logistic issues prevented her from attending – her husband’s Midnight Oil tickets trumped SBGA. Wayne was very hopeful of winning a 2017 trophy, and might have been in contention except for a successful Brisk Bizz bankruptcy summons issued by Tara which decimated his cash and real estate with only a couple of turns remaining. Up to that point he looked to have the largest real estate portfolio of the game. He ended up WHP – c’est la vie! The dice were not kind to Mark – he too fell victim to the WHP epidemic, but did a sterling job as the Brisk Bizz banker, he also made and lost a fortune as a result of the vagaries of Challenge cards. Then there was our host Louise. She scored her 7th consecutive WHP! That’s right, no points at all since April. A quick perusal of Wayne’s history book showed that Louise’s 85 points is the lowest whole-season score this century! From here the only way for Louise is up, perhaps a trophy in 2018?

The Spoon will go to Louise 🙁

The October meet was another beauty with trophy contenders switching places and 75% of the membership within reach of the top spot. Check out the graph. Rob has been toppled from the top by virtue of his first WHP since January – he’s now 3rd behind Genelle and Gill. Gill won That’s Broadway convincingly with a very narrow margin separating Wayne and Mark in the minor placings. In the backup Pass The Bomb (always fun) There was a bomb-off for 1st place won by Genelle who bombed Tara off, then another bomb-off for 3rd between Gill and Rob, who as previously mentioned, WHP. Nicole hasn’t built on her leap forward in September in which she overtook 3 players to grab 3rd spot – tonight’s WHP got her overtaken again by Gill. Poor Louise continued her run of WHP, now in its 6th month – this means she is now a dead cert to get the dreaded SPOON.
Discussions were held to decide the date for Presentation Night 2017, current plans have it on Thursday 14 December.

News from the desk of El Prez

Since I was away for the September meet, September’s News is brought to you by El Presidente in his own writing (I’m too lazy to retype it). I would like to thank you all for changing the date of the October meet to ensure I could make it to that meet.
It seems the standout performance in September was Nicole who overtook three other players to put herself within reach of the championship trophy – well done.

Regards,

Rob

Wayne’s News

Genelle Forges Ahead

Genelle can now be referred to as GG without fear of ambiguity with the former GG who is now GW – am I making sense? Anyway, GG is this month’s most improved, overtaking Gill, Tara and Nicole to jump from equal 4th to outright 2nd place, only 55 shy of Rob’s lead. Wayne has also improved his standing from 6th to 5th by winning Uno. Mark was tonight’s host, and provided excellent hospitality (including Iced Vo-Vo bikkies!). He got 25 points for 3rd in Cosmic Control. Poor Louise WHP yet again, her losing streak is now five months old.

The main game Cosmic Control won by GG had been modified since last (and first) played in 2013, but the need for further changes became evident as play progressed. Rob has undertaken to modify the payouts for landing on one of the planets to be more aligned to the probability of the associated dice roll. Another well-liked suggestion from GG was to modify the challenge process so that a single die roll would multiply rather than add to the starfighter strength figures. It remains to be seen how these mods will affect the length of time spent sitting out the action by players who have lost their assets.

Nicole was absent due to looming work deadlines, and she is scheduled to be the next host.

UPDATE:
Wayne has since spoken to Nicole and confirmed the meeting date as Sept 25. Nicole is planning a theme to go with the backup game Sherwood…a Robin Hood theme!

Mrs Wilson toppled from the top

After being either first or equal first for 5 of the last 7 meets, Gill has finally been toppled into 2nd place by Rob. When told the gap was 45 points her ominous comment was “Hmm, you’re still catchable”. Below I’ve published a photo (thanks Susan Fleming and Facebook) of the brand new Mrs Wilson on her wedding day – congrats from all of us. …and you’re not a cranky old school teacher.
Back in June Wayne surged ahead into third place, overtaking both Tara and Genelle. Sadly for him, that situation has reversed, both those ladies and Nicole have re-overtaken him back into 6th place. It might have had something to do with the fact that he was absent for an unprecedented third time this year due to Music Society rehearsal commitments. Note that there is a tie for 4th between Nicole and Genelle.
The scheduled main game Articulate! was not played due to being a teams event with an odd number of players present. In its place Gill chose Race To The Top which is a trivia-style game for up to 6 players, also a teams event but can be played solo. Rob as usual volunteered to go solo, but the consensus was to draw teams and let the draw decide who was the solo player. It turned out Genelle played alone and did well, coming 2nd all on her own. The winning team was Nicole/Rob with Gill/Mark coming third. The Tara/Louise team was unplaced, but Tara went on to win Pictureka!, leaving Louise in WHP territory. With no points since April, Louise could be heading for the Spoon, but there’s still time to improve on that state of affairs.

On August 14 we’ll be going to Oatley where Mark has picked a little known and little played El Prez game called Cosmic Control followed by Uno. As expected, Wayne has dropped off the board and rules for Cosmic Control. It is a dice rolling game along the lines of many others of this genre. Last time it was played (possibly the first time too) was 2013. Problems were encountered at that time and modifications have been made, so it is still sort of under development.

Gill’s wedding

Gill retains top spot despite WHP

Not content with hogging the News headlines for the last three months by holding on to the top spot, Gill is about to generate more by getting married! By the next meeting she’ll be Mrs Wilson. We at the SBGA wish you all the best on your wedding day Gill, and thanks for removing one of the two sets of GG initials from the membership list, henceforth you’ll be known as GW.
The new Thomas Enterprises main game Cops & Robbers showed some promise, but had bugs that needed squashing, for example the huge price difference between some properties such that the less valuable ones were simply bypassed while everyone targeted the expensive ones. One part of the board received the bulk of the traffic which we think can be improved by moving the jail to the opposite corner from the police station. I’m sure El Prez will take those issues on board. It was somehow appropriate that it was won by Wayne himself, followed by me then Tara.
The backup game Slam was also a new El Prez original that is simple, went quite quickly and had no discernable faults in its first outing. It was won by Genelle (the last remaining GG) followed by Nicole and me.
We had one absentee – Mark being out of the country, and an honourable mention goes to Louise for the other WHP.

Gill regains the upper hand

Gill turned up to the May meet after missing the previous two and made short work of her challengers, breaking the 3-way tie at the top by winning Trivial Pursuit with 4 cheeses, then coming 2nd in Uno, opening an 80 point lead on the pack that was baying at her heels in April.Mark did well to come 2nd in TP after a 3-way tie (3 cheeses each) was broken by a quiz-off with Rob coming 3rd. Mark’s 50 points have lifted him out of Wooden Spoon position, overtaking Louise. Tara also made points by winning Uno and now she’s coming 2nd but only 10 points ahead of Rob. Gill was quite chuffed to win TP, wallowing in the knowledge that she finally beat Rob at his favourite game. Genelle and Louise both WHP.

We had two absentees from this meet – Wayne had to attend a crisis meeting at the Musical Society, and Nicole apologised for last minute notice, she had a deadline looming that involves painting designs on 40 leotards! This allowed us to play Trivial Pursuit individually – no teams.

In June it will be Wayne hosting at Jannali, and he has picked two new games of his own making. Cops & Robbers is a “fast paced action game with robbers committing crimes, taking hostages, creating sieges and battling 4 law enforcement agencies”. The backup is Slam – a cricket-based card game.

Thanks to you all for your tolerance of our pup Daisy May – here she is looking apologetic for snuffling in Louise’s bag and finding a pack of tissues and a work card key, both now slightly chewed. Eventually she settled down and went to sleep, leaving us in peace.

Gill absent and still not overtaken, BUT…

Gill, you know, that person on the top score, couldn’t make it for the second consecutive meet, however there are now THREE players tied on the top score of 175 – Gill, Genelle and Rob! Only 5 points behind on 170 is Tara. Take a look at the line graph on the home page – it makes interesting reading; you can see Gill’s 125 points in February rocketed her to the top where she has since flatlined. Nicole‘s 125 in January rocketed her to the top, but that lead only lasted till February. Half the membership is now jammed together at the top of the ladder! Wayne‘s Shire Buyer win has lifted him out of the Wooden Spoon rank – that honour now falls to Mark who has been flatlining since February. Louise narrowly avoided slipping into last place by coming 2nd in Smart Ass, thus overtakling Mark.

The main game, Wayne’s Shire Buyer had it’s 2nd outing since it was new in 2012 – it was Genelle’s first SBGA game experience back then. Being relatively “new” meant that certain anomalies were revealed during game play. Wayne put a lot of effort into avoiding the Monopoly syndrome in which players who go broke must sit out the remainder of the game till there’s only one player left. Unfortunately it fell to poor Nicole to reveal that Monopoly syndrome has not been completely avoided – she went bankrupt with little chance of regaining any position at all. With nearly all properties owned, even a million dollar bank loan allows the broke player to travel the board, but with only a microscopic chance of expanding her property portfolio. One possible rule change might be to call Game Over if a player goes bankrupt twice.