Category: Meeting report

El trez gets double whammy, catches the leader – new game goes missing.

On a cool but somewhat windy evening at Como, we had a pleasant evening of gaming despite the absence of the chosen main game. It was to have been Readers Digest Word Power which we think was last seen at Nicole‘s where there was a discussion in which El Prez thought it had previously been written off as unsuitable for our requirements, but El Trez had no recollection of that fact, so I elected to inspect the rules to find out what it was about. Those rules are still on my desk, have been scanned into my computer, and have been published here on the SBGA website. Meanwhile, the game itself has vanished! It seems that Nicole, not realising that it was under serious consideration for our club, may have donated it somewhere. Whoever has it now will be wondering what the rules are.

The replacement on the night was the original old version of Word Power which Rob won in a close finish just ahead of Genelle, followed a couple of moves later by Louise. The backup game was Uno Flip, also won by El Trez by sheer luck rather than talent, the cards were kind, unlike poor Louise who at one point had to pick up about a quarter of the pack in one of those “dark side” flip penalties. So Rob has now made up for his WHP in January, but sadly Wayne has yet to overcome his WHP demon, scoring the second one for the year. Tara has now had three third placings out of four games for 2020, and in this competition, that’s only enough to get you just ahead of the Wooden Spooner on zero. Remember – it is early days, too early for anyone to lose hope, and too early for anyone to think the trophy is already in the bag.

Louise & Genelle already fighting it out for the lead.

Arriving just before sunset at Louise’s on the Georges River, we were able to briefly enjoy the magnificent water views before gaming commenced for 2020. Louise chose DumbAss as the backup game, and straight away regretted it – it seemed much more USA oriented than the version played previously. It may not get picked again for some time. Genelle won it with Louise in 2nd place. Louise won the main game Five Crowns – this is what caused the draw for the lead, 100 points each. Tara got the double whammy 3rd place in both games, putting her in 3rd spot on the ladder ahead of Nicole on 25 for coming 2nd in DumbAss. Missing from this commentary so far are El Prez and El Trez – nothing to see here, they both WHP.

The February meet will be at Rob’s and he picked the new Readers Digest version of Word Power. When it was asked who was in possession of the game there were blank looks all around, then Nicole said she might have it, and hoped that it wasn’t given away in a recent cleanout. Fingers crossed, it’s still in a cupboard somewhere – the rules sheet is still with El Trez.

Louise is the 2019 Champ, The sisters Z runners-up, Tara 2nd, Nicole 3rd.

Once again at the El Prez Gamerdome in Jannali, it was a balmy night enjoyed by all for the 2019 Grand Final playing Sherlock Holmes. Genelle was the host and came from her Northern outpost equipped with all manner of nibbles and beverage makings. Louise consolidated her position at the top by winning Sherlock (and the $50 cash) – she had been leading since June. The top of the table had been dominated by Louise, Tara & Rob since May, but tonight Nicole made a late run by getting points in two games while Tara & Rob WHP. Thus Nicole scraped into a 3rd place trophy just 5 points ahead of Rob. Genelle was only another 20 points behind in 5th spot, while Wayne made an impressive late run starting in September, but alas, it was too late to save him from The Spoon. The backup Five Crowns was won by Nicole and is scheduled to make another appearance in January at Louise’s.

We’ll be getting together at Stapleton’s on December 4 for the annual presentation – see you there around 7pm.

Nicole gets double whammy on home ground.

Greeted at Nicole’s door by a MacKenzie daughter posing as a hopping bunny rabbit, it promised to be a fun evening, and it was. The main game Pictionary was a teams event with Louise/Wayne vs Nicole/Tara vs Genelle/Rob. We knew we were in for a thrashing when the Zarubin sisters ended up on the same team, and that’s what happened – they finished as winnners while the rest of us were still on the first couple of squares of the board! Well played ladies. Rather than spend ages going around the board there was a Pict-off for second place with Louise/Wayne beating Genelle/Rob.
The backup game was a new one from Nicole – Cat Bingo, just like normal bingo except cat breeds are used instead of numbers. Who knew there were so many exotic types of pussy? It was a bit awkward to clearly identify place getters, there was a 3-way cat-off to determine the placings which worked OK, those placings being Nicole, Louise, Tara in that order. So Nicole scored a double whammy 150 points on home turf – an excellent performance.

The scoreboard shows that it will be Louise and Tara fighting it out for the championship, although Rob is theoretically within reach of the top spot if he gets a double whammy and Louise falls over at the finishing post. Most likely it’ll be Genelle and Rob fighting it out for 3rd place. Nicole’s 150 pointer has come along a bit too late, although she is within reach of 3rd place. Wayne is a dead cert to get the Spoon having been left in the lurch by Mark’s resignation.

December 4 has been chosen as the date for the annual presentation dinner at Stapleton’s which is under new management and has been somewhat remodelled – it’ll be interesting to see how it measures up. As the final meet is coming up, please think about finalising your dues, there are a couple of you a few dollars in the red according to my records which includes the November $50 cash prize and a trophy cost estimate.

New Game at Tara’s new abode

In what turned out to be a wise move, Nicole swapped hosting duties with Tara for September’s meet, and then found she had such a big day that she couldn’t make it to the meet! Consequently the teams event Articulate! couldn’t be played as planned, so Tara (or was it Genelle? – they had both played it before) produced a new card game called Five Crowns that we hadn’t tried before, and it was a success. Even El Prez, initially sceptical as usual, had to admit that he actually liked the game. It was won convincingly by Tara, followed by Genelle and Louise with the two blokes convincingly in the last two places. The new game has been added to the games list, and the rules are available on this website – check the games page.
Pass the Pigs was won in fine style by Wayne, with almost double the score of Genelle in 2nd place. Note that there were no WHP victims at this meet.
We were all mightily impressed by the renovations at the Spence residence – almost a complete rebuild, beautiful timber, wood fire, great lighting, marvellous deck, pool, and that was just the downstairs bit.

Mark resigns, Louise retains the lead

We are now down to six members after Mark Boan recently resigned from the club. It seems it was a combination of continuous bad luck at the table, plus he is aiming to reduce the number of organisations of which he is a member in the interests of family harmony. We wish you all the best Mark, you will be missed. El Prez is actively seeking candidates for our two vacancies.
Louise holds on to her top spot despite a WHP, but her winning margin reduces to 65 points after Rob scored points in both games. Musicopoly was enjoyed by all and was won by Genelle followed by Nicole, and Wayne would have beaten Rob into third place by a margin of only about 1% until Rob found an insurance card worth 1000 points that he’d dropped on the floor just before adding up his score. Pass The Bomb was a hoot as usual, won by Tara from Rob in a tiebreaking bomb-off. Genelle also scored points in both games, but the scoreboard shows that the pecking order has not changed from last month.

Louise continues winning streak

The main game was host Rob‘s favourite – Trivial Pursuit, but he only just scraped into 3rd place in a double quiz-off against Tara, and then only because the final question was Beatles related. Everyone agreed that the questions seemed harder than usual. We adopted a new playing method in an effort to avoid the “3 teams plus one solo” that occurs when an odd number attend. Rather than one playing solo (which is unpopular with some), at Louise’s suggestion we opted to play individually, but with the rules altered to the shorter version of the game by awarding a “cheese” every time a correct answer is scored.
Louise continued her winning streak after her double whammy of June by winning Trivial, so she is now further ahead – increasing her 15 point lead by 100 points. Genelle came 2nd, and Tara made up for being quizzed out of the placings in Trivial by winning Uno Flip. Louise got another helping of points by coming 2nd in Uno, and Mark finally scored a few points by coming 3rd in Uno. This brings him back to where he was in May before the ignominious shirt penalty of June took 10 points off his score. He was not a happy camper in Trivial, failing miserably in the cheese department due to sheer bad luck. Louise on the other hand remarked it was the most enjoyable game of TP she had ever had. WHP victims tonight were Nicole and Wayne.

New Leader – Louise takes Trez’s advice and wins.

It was a cold, damp night at Illawong, but the aircon kept us comfy as we played Word Power. Louise’s plan was to hold back in the lower educational institutions with easier questions to more quickly amass points to graduate to University, then make a rush for the finish, but she was strongly advised against this by El Trez sitting next to her – just go for the finish he said. She wisely took that advice and beat him into second place as a result! There was a crowd scene at the board finish line as Rob, Mark, Genelle and Wayne jostled for second and third places – the Zarubin sisters Tara and Nicole were languishing in High School while this was going on. Rob eventually scraped into 2nd and Genelle made it into an uncatchable end position as we called off the final questions and awarded her third place.

The time had flown by as we started the backup game late, so it didn’t really get a good airing. This was a shame because it is a brand new game – a Uno variant called Uno Flip. So that we can get a better go at it, it will be on the program again in July. The single round we had was won by Louise, thus giving her a double whammy of points which overtakes Rob to put her at the top, but only by 15 points. Take a look at the score graph on the front page – there’s the two fighting it out at the top, then a 110 point gap to Tara at 3rd, then a 50 point gap to the middle bunch in a 30-point grouping, then we come to Mark – a sorry story, his already low graph line goes downhill this month due to a dress code violation; he forgot his SBGA shirt! This hasn’t happened for quite some time, excluding extenuating circumstances such as pregnancy for example. Due to both Louise and Genelle getting double doses of points, there were four WHP victims this month.

Genelle’s “Silly Game” a hit.

Genelle was our host at the Presidential Games Room at Jannali, and she brought lots of goodies – not only a table groaning with edibles, but also two new games. There was Uno Flip, a new variant of the old favourite, which is now donated to the official SBGA collection, thanks GG. It is scheduled to be played at the June meet. Then there was tonight’s secondary game – a game with no fixed name, hence it’s generic title of “Silly Game”. According to Genelle it takes its title from the most memorable or amusing phrase that occurred last time it was played – in this case, John Howard’s Eyebrows. It was a hit for the majority of players, but El Prez found it hard to take in, although he really excelled at the Charades segment, so he’ll probably grow to like it eventually. John Howard’s Eyebrows was won in fine style by Tara, who scored more than double the points of second placed Louise, with Genelle in third place.

The main game was Sherlock Holmes, for which Rob took home tonight’s prize of a Monopoly variant. This was mainly due to sheer luck – by playing a Sherlock card on Tara with no incriminating evidence other than her holding a large hand, and capturing TWO villains at once (this may also have had something to do with Tara coming last). Wayne made second place with a successful arrest, as did Louise in third place.
Tonight’s WHP was Mark, who is looking decidedly Spoonish now that we’re almost halfway through the year. Nicole was absent due to family commitments.

Note that we clarified a potential playing strategy in Sherlock as probably legal because the rules have nothing specific to say about it being compulsory to play a card held before resorting to the pickup pile. For example, if the next card to be played is “Location or Thick Fog”, and you have only Thick Fog that can be played, and you have no villain cards, and don’t want to risk acquiring one in the re-shuffle resulting from a Thick Fog, then it is legal to pick up a card instead of playing the Fog card.