Category: Meeting report

(Postponed to February 4)

Gill Resigns – Welcome Nicole

In a decision that must have been very hard to make, Gill has resigned due to family commitments. We are all very sad to see her go, and hope that one day, priorities permitting, she might re-surface and win that game of Pictionary that she was so keen to have. It was a pleasure to welcome back Nicole who has had a year off – also due to family commitments – and has replaced Jordan who left at the end of 2018. It seems we are now looking to fill another vacancy.

The January meeting (postponed to Feb 4) was held in air conditioned comfort at the Presidential games room – our host Gill was MIA for reasons already mentioned. The main game was Smart Ass, and we modified it a bit by doing two laps of the board due to it being a bit short with only a single lap. El Trez led for much of the game, hotly chased by Tara right up to a few moves before the end when she stalled and was overtaken by Louise to snatch 2nd place.

Old favourite Uno was the backup, won in fine style by Tara with Genelle 2nd and El Trez 3rd by only 3 points. So all the points were won by four players with Mark, Wayne and Nicole all WHP.

A recurring theme at the meeting was El Prez’s hearing impairment – it is becoming obvious that he is actually missing out on game points by failing to hear what is going on in games. I think he mentioned that he has an appointment to check his hearing – we wish him well and hope that it results in an improvement that will allow him to compete without the ear handicap.

Grand Final –
El Trez Owns the World, Spoon tied!

Wayne was the host and the author of both games programmed for the 2018 decider played on a balmy Jannali evening with much rule reading and correcting – thanks Tara. It’s so long since we played Who Owns The World that even El Prez didn’t remember the rules.  Despite the rule lookup issue, we all enjoyed it with El Trez winning on more than double the finances of 2nd placed Mark, and Tara sneaking into 3rd place with less than a 5% margin over Jordan.  Rob’s win was seemingly effortless, but it was simply the luck of the 12-sided die not landing him on any disastrous squares, and handing him a couple of “Subsidies” in which first the bank, then Mark paid for desirable industrial properties on his behalf.

The backup game Reno Casino was equally well received – another El Prez original – won by Genelle with El Prez and El Trez in the minor placings.  The main score graph shows how Rob, Tara and Louise have been ahead of the pack since March, and a late run by Genelle taking advantage of Louise’s WHP was too little too late.  Note that there is a TIE for the dreaded Spoon.  It is rather sad that the holder of the Spoon will be decided by the roll of a die – will it be Gill or Jordan?  Back in 2015 we amended the constitution to allow for multiple trophies to avoid this situation at the top of the scoreboard – see clause 7.7, I think it’s time to do something similar for the victims of the Spoon – perhaps a mid-year handover from loser to co-loser with both names inscribed on the perpetual wood. What do you think? Discuss in the comments.

Louise and Jordan were the two unfortunate WHP victims – and Gill was another no-show.  The new mum sent her apologies with an assurance that she would see us at the Dinner, and that she would definitely be returning in 2019 to win the championship!  Gill is host in January – I predict another attempt to get Pictionary off the ground.

The Annual Dinner will take place on Thursday 13 December at Stapleton’s in Sutherland with several ex-members in attendance. I look forward to seeing you all there.

El Trez WHP – Tara now a Major Contender

There were only five of us at Como for the penultimate meeting of the year, but it was a fun meet.  Jordan was having car trouble, Louise is somewhere over near Uluru, and Gill is still coming to terms with motherhood.

El Trez picked an old fave,  Word Power, and trailed the field through nearly all of the game (Daisy kept chewing up his homework).  He was the only WHP on the night, and that saw his 85 point competition lead eroded to just 15 points as Tara with her double whammy second placings overtook the Uluru tourist Louise to grab 2nd spot.  Those two ladies are both contenders for the top spot with just one meet to go before awards night, and with Wayne’s November programme, it’s anyone’s guess who’ll win.  Gill and Jordan are still tied for the Spoon, and it could stay that way right till the end – not sure what happens in that case?

Genelle is back from her travels with a vengeance, winning Word Power in fine style – sailing through University while El Trez & El Prez were toddling out of High School.  Mark got points for 3rd in Word Power, but Genelle’s performance has well and truly broken their tie of last month.  The ladder positions are fairly evenly spread from bottom to top, except for the actual bottom and top places.

We have set a date for the Dinner/Reunion evening – 13 December, put it in your calendars!  More details to come later.

Here’s a recent photo Gill sent with her absence apology just before the meeting. That’s baby Linc who’s been keeping her very busy lately.

El Prez blitzes SmartAss

There were only 5 of us at the September meet at Illawong.  Gill– still coming to grips with being a new mum, missed one of her faves, Genelle was still rambling over the gentle green hills of England, and Jordan was a bit overwhelmed with work commitments.  The reduced attendance was the main factor in making the game of SmartAss unusually quick – so much so that we were able to fit in three games before starting Pass The Pigs.  The first two of those games were won convincingly by none other than El Prez, proving he was the Smartest Ass of the night.  He garnered the main game victory, and the 100 points have very handily pushed him two steps up the ladder, overtaking Gill and Jordan who are now tied at the Spoon position.  El Trez came 2nd in both games, and the 75 points have increased his cometition lead by 60 points.  Mark‘s 25 points for 3rd place in Ass Have pushed him up to be tied with Genelle at 4th on the ladder.  In Pass The Pigs Our host Louise had a gutsy win and Tara came 3rd after an unpromising start. Those points have pushed Louise to overtake Tara, but by only the slimmest of margins, just 5 points.  Excluding absentees, there were no WHP victims.  Thanks Louise for the lovely cups of tea or coffee in those attractive mugs.

Tara wins Sherlock

On a cold night at Macquarie Park there were just six of us to battle it out – Wayne was absent due to theatrical rehearsals, and Gill is occupied with her new baby.  Our host Genelle was packed and ready to depart on her epic holiday, part of which involves walking about 300km across England!  There were two main changes of position after this meet – Tara has overtaken Louise to sit only 25 points behind the lead, and Genelle has overtaken Mark, but only by 25 points. Jordan has caught up and tied with Gill.

Sherlock Holmes was a fairly close game with only 23 and 31 points separating the placegetters. Tara took the lead early by taking a punt on Rob harbouring a villain and making an arrest, only to discover to her delight he was sheltering two of them.  She came unstuck in the last round with the worst score of the game so far – 110 points, but was far enough ahead to win anyway.  Louise, although liking this game, still has trouble holding in her head all the info about what each card does and finds herself reading the rules almost continuously. She was going to pick it for a second consecutive month (she’s the next host) in order to familiarise herself with it more effectively, but this won’t happen because it has now already been played twice in 2018.  Jordan although new to the game picked it up quite well and came 3rd – well done.

The backup – still unsure if it’s pronounced “Digit” or “Dig it” – was challenging, there was lots of hard thinking going on.  When time was up it was apparent that there was a 3-way tie for first place!  Unable to figure out how to arrange a digit-off to break the tie, mainly because there’s a distinct advantage to having first turn, we resorted to drawing numbered tiles from another game – that’s how all the backup placings were determined.  The only WHP tonight was Mark who played consistently through both games, but luck eluded him.  He showed off his new Lexus on the way out, very nice, practically drives itself, so although he WHP, at least he WH in great comfort.

Smart Ass and Fun with the Bomb

We gathered at Tara‘s for this meet and met her new family addition Luka, a little cutie. Congrats to the Spence crowd from all of us.  Gill was absent as she has just delivered her bundle of joy, Lincoln, born on July 4 – Congrats to the Wilsons!

Smart Ass was anyone’s game at the end – Louise sped off and beat everyone to the end zone, but was caught up by Rob after he spent the first 3/4 of the game loitering around the first quadrant. It could have gone either way, but Rob made it to the donkey’s bottom first.  Louise soon followed, then it was a hard fought battle for third place with Genelle taking the 25 points. Poor El Prez never made it past the first quarter of the track due to the luck of the dice making him repeatedly land on “kick ass” (move backwards 3).

Pass the Bomb was a laugh a minute from the beginnning, and was won in fine style by Mark who didn’t take a single blast. He credits some of his success to sitting downstream from El Prez who amassed an impressive collection of bomb blasts by having his words rejected, querying the decisions, and having the bomb go off in mid discussion. Louise was plagued by mental blocks – she claimed she was too tired. Second and third placings were determined by a tie breaker bomb-off betwen Tara and Genelle.

Jordan, who turned up straight from work looking very dapper, unfortunately WHP, as did Thomas senior.  So now Rob has regained the top spot, but only by 35 points, easily within reach of being overtaken again by Louise or Tara.  We’ll see.

This news item comes to you from the pencil of El Presidente himself – your editor being out of the country for the June meet.

Tara Wins at Wembley – now joint leader

Even though the winner of Wembley Cup is determined by the richest player and not match results, the game went to the Cup Final winner and runner-up in the 4-3 victory of Watford over Stockport.  Watford was managed by Tara, and Stockport by Genelle.  El Prez came 3rd which sees him break away from the 3-way 50-point tie that existed at the bottom of the table – the Spoon is now a 2-way tie between Jordan (WHP) and Gill (absent due to the woes of late pregnancy). Gill has said she’ll make every effort to make the June meet depending on the status of said pregnancy.  Tara‘s win puts her right up to the top of the table tied with Rob, and he’s going to be absent from the June meet, so we could easily have a new outright leader by July – Louise is also within reach of the top spot.
The backup was Yahtzee which almost didn’t eventuate – the game dug out of Mark’s cupboard had only one die and no score sheets.  El Prez came to the rescue with 4 additional dice, and El Trez just happened to have with him some freshly printed score sheets.  It was a bit hard on some players’ OCD tendencies to roll the 5 dice – four of which were “normal” sized transparent lovelies, with one oversized white monster, but we got through it.  Rob won the backup convincingly by scoring TWO Yahtzies in the round with Louise and Mark in the minor placings.

Flop, flop, flop!

Sounds like a fish out of water, but that was the outcome of the first three movies released at the box office of tonight’s main game – Movie Maker. A quick calculation shows that the odds of making 3 flops in a row are 1 in 216, that’s rolling three consecutive “ones” with a single die. It was especially disappointing for Mark who went through complicated negotiations, receiving advice from right and left, stumping up the small fortune to make the film, only to end up with a flop at the box office. It was a case of ROFL for all. If you don’t know what ROFL means, ask someone younger.  Despite this setback, he ended up making a non-flop which won him the game.
Mark also scored points by coming 3rd in Uno, those 110 points moving him from the bottom half of the table to the top half, and within reach of the lead.
Louise also scored twice – 3rd in Movie Maker and 2nd in Uno. This has lifted her past Tara into 2nd place on the ladder, only 35 points from the leader Rob who tonight WHP, along with Jordan and Gill.  Although Genelle improved her score by 50 points for a 2nd in Movie Maker, she dropped a spot on the ladder due to Mark’s rapid rise.
Wayne has finally lifted himself off the floor by winning Uno in fine style. He joins the party with Gill and Jordan on the bottom of the table at 50 points.
Tara was absent due to the recent arrival of her new daughter Luka (see photo) – congrats to the Spence tribe from all of us.

Jordan Thomas Returns with a Splash

It was a beautiful cloudless autumn night as we filed into the residents’ common room at Wayne‘s place. His son Jordan had eventually sorted out his domestic infestation issues and finally met everyone (except Gill who couldn’t make it).  The splash came about halfway through the main game as Wayne knocked over an almost full glass of juice – most of it landing on Jordan – miraculously missing his phone and wallet that were on the table.

The main event was Gallop – an old favourite with the huge racetrack board, the silk-clad jockeys on their legendary mounts, and Mark in the Tote banker’s cap. Tara won it by a huge margin, finishing with almost eight times as much cash as the nearest rival Jordan, who was closely followed by Rob in 3rd place. Not content with blasting everyone off the track, Tara then won the backup Scattergories convincingly with Genelle in 2nd place. There was a draw for 3rd, so Jordan and Rob had the first ever “alpha-off” tie breaker – a roll of the Scattergories alphabet ball to see who got closest to A.  Rob won the 10 point 3rd place. Only four of us scored points, leaving both Louise and Mark on WHP.

Have a look at the progressive score graph, and it’s obvious who is the big improver – Tara, overtaking three other gamers and now within a backup game win of reaching the top.  Wayne is still to rise up from the murk at the bottom, then there are four people around 50-60 with three of them tied on 50 points, then a 90 point gap to the top three.