Category: Meeting report

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As mentioned last month, trophies this year have been replaced by awarding the annual $50 November cash “Beano” prize to the competition winner – that winner turned out to be your Editor and Treasurer, Rob.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.

Movie Maker updated

It was a pleasant but cool evening at the El Prez Gamerdome in Jannali for five of us playing the updated version of the old favourite Movie Maker – now titled Movie Maker: Bond & Beyond, followed by another new dice game called Slam. Everybody avoided the dreaded WHP, but we were missing Nicole due to her work commitments, and there has been no further contact from Jiordan – we are close to deleting her from the membership. Speaking of membership, El Prez has approached a colleague at his village, the in-house bus driver, who may be interested in joining.

Bond & Beyond has some simplifications from the original Movie Maker, and was basically successful, but with a modification needed as agreed by all. When landing on a square that lets you pick up a card, and that card has no stock left, we resolved to allow a swap to occur rather than move on without picking up. MMB&B was won by Louise with 53% more cash than Rob in 2nd place and with Genelle 3rd. Wayne had severe bad luck, producing a number of big flop movies – in one production his die roll was profitable, but invalid due to being touched by Tara, then on the replacement roll he achieved yet another flop!

Slam, the new El Prez game based loosely on cricket was fast-paced and simple. I thought the scoring could more closely resemble the actual game of Cricket as played by blokes in baggy green caps on a paddock with grass – for example it is far easier to score a six, or even a seven run hit than it is to score a single. In fact it is impossible to score a single run because two dice are thrown and the score for snake eyes is two runs. But the principle was good, and it will probably be picked again. It was won by Rob whose opening batsman was still hitting after a couple of others were all out. Tara and Wayne were in the minor placings.

Nicole‘s absence may have cost her the lead as it has been regained by Rob with Louise and Nicole tied for 2nd place only 25 points behind. Then there’s a 65 point gap to Genelle, but it’s still early days.

Bankrupts Rule! – (not)

It was the worst deluge Sydney had seen in 100 years, but there was a sufficient lull in the downpour to enjoy some games. Everyone turned up to Rob’s at Como except Jiordan who hasn’t replied to recent messages – a bit worrying, perhaps she’s still in Qld. We renewed our acquaintance with an old fave Brisk Bizz in which fortunes were won and lost and bankruptcies were rife. In fact, there was one that had a devastating result:- Genelle drew a Challenge card that allowed her to nominate anybody to attend the insolvency court. Her ultimately successful strategy was to pick the current competition leader (me) for the bankruptcy hearing, and he was found insolvent! He had to hand back an impressive array of properties and all his cash, a disaster from which he never fully recovered, and which possibly contributed to his WHP and loss of the lead. There were also other players who never quite recovered from being bankrupted, but Wayne managed to recover pretty well despite several visits to the court. The new competition leader is Nicole with her Bizz win giving her a 75 point lead.
Genelle won Greed and also came third in Bizz, this burst of points allowing her to overtake Louise and occupy third place on the ladder. Wayne‘s double placing – a 2nd and a 3rd – has pushed him right up with the middle bunch on the ladder, in with a chance of a placing. Tara‘s 2nd in Greed wasn’t enough to make her look good on the ladder, but at least she’s off the dreaded Zero and only a Movie Maker win away from mixing it with the middle bunch.

Two Tied Places, Prez Wins Pigs

It was a warm wet summer night at Illawong as we admired the early evening view over Georges River from Louise‘s balcony. Louise’s house is just 1.2km from Rob’s if you fly there in a straight line across the Woronora River, but it’s a 14.7km drive!
The program for this meet was to be 5 Crowns followed by Sumo, but it seems Sumo had gone missing, so we played Pass The Pigs instead, a game on very similar principles. There were six of us present – Jiordan was still with her mum in Queensland, but thinks she’ll be back in time for the March meet.
El Prez was struggling in 5 Crowns, remarking that the game seemed much more difficult than the previous time he’d played it. By the last round he was starting to come good. It was won convincingly by our host Louise, the second placed Rob being quadruple her score of 31, with Nicole 3rd only 11 points behind him (remember it’s lowest score wins).
Pigs was its usual entertaining self, but Louise’s little piggies seemed to be suffering from old age, or perhaps were sunbaking too long – they’d gone hard. It didn’t stop them from performing their usual piggie dances, and the winner was a surprised El Presidente himself with Nicole and Genelle in the minor placings.
The player most disappointed with her performance on the night was Tara with a WHP – in fact she may have set some kind of record in Pigs, she scored pigouts on 90% of her turns!
The competition ladder now shows Rob retaining his 25 point lead, but there are now two players tied for second place – Louise and Nicole, and 65 points back, Genelle and Wayne tied for third, but it is early days.

Two latecomers, and Hostess misses meet

It was a balmy summer night at the Presidential Games Room, but at meeting time there were only four members at the table. Firstly, the host for the evening, Jiordan, was still in Queensland with her mother who is ill – we elected to proceed with her games programme despite her absence. Then there were the latecomers Rob and Nicole who were both late due to unusual home situations. We still managed to get through the two games, although with a somewhat late finish.

Race To The Top has been played on only one previous occasion, but proved to be a good trivia game with some similarities to Trivial Pursuit, and it was easy to determine a winner by applying a time limit rather than playing to the conclusion. Popular with those who love trivia games, and not so popular with those who don’t, it was won by Rob with Genelle and Nicole in the minor placings. Nicole got a double helping of points by winning the backup game Yahtzee in fine style, scoring I believe two actual Yahtzees – this puts her in second place on the scoreboard. The minor backup placings went to Louise and Wayne, and Tara was the only WHP.

Grand Final – the winner is Louise!

Congrats to Louise – the 2020 competition winner, and as a bonus, she took delivery of our very first green Board Queen shirt. In other fashion news, Jiordan also received her official blue SBGA shirt at the meet.

The programme was a bit unusual – Wayne’s Heroes & Villains has not been played often, possibly only once previously, but it went over quite well with the players, and came to an end relatively quickly when the inventor of the game lost his last Hero/Villain card. Nicole, our host, won on home turf with the minor placings Louise and Tara. The backup Sumo Slam was new to us – introduced by Nicole, it’s quite similar to Pass The Pigs, but with rubber Sumo wrestlers about 3 times the size of passed pigs. Jiordan scored her first game win in the Sumo ring with runners up Nicole and Louise.

So, Nicole and Louise both scored a double helping of points. This meant that Nicole was the biggest improver, overtaking Genelle to finish 4th for the season. Louise’s 60 points cemented her championship trophy, the only other contender Rob scoring a pathetic WHP to cement his 2nd place trophy. The other WHP scorers were El Prez and Genelle.

After the games ended we did a trial run of another new game introduced by Genelle – Rat-a-tat Cat. It went down pretty well with everyone except El Prez who said he didn’t like the look of it – this drew a well deserved accusation of Trump-like behaviour from Mother Theresa who was having trouble leaving behind her schoolmarm persona after a hard day’s teach.