Lost Chicken Wages
J: Last Sunday we
attended a very nice local gaming expo at UM's student union, which I
forgot to mention in last week's news, durn it. The event was hosted by
our friends at North Star Games,
and they put on a great show.
I played Why
Did The Chicken with Kristin M., Jake, Rich, Kory, and assorted
other folks. I actually scored well, so I guess I was having a funny
night.
I played in the Wits
& Wagers tournament, and scored a huge loss but had fun
nonetheless. North Star Gave away lots of prizes, including cash, so it
was a bit surprising and disappointing that more people didn't show up
for the free (free!) event. I bought a nice copy of Wits & Wagers,
the first edition with the really soft, big betting pad. This is going
to be a future rare collector's item for sure.
I also finally purchased a copy of Knitzia's Lost
Cities card game. Even though I used to play it way too much with
Kory I never owned a copy till now. Lori, Gina and I have been playing
every night since then; Lori has the same Lost Cities fever that Kory
and I caught a few years back.
After the public gaming, seven die-hard game designers retreated to a
shadowy region of the student union to play a private ring game of
poker. I had some lucky hands and played well; I eventually came away
as the ring leader and netted over ten bucks. Meanwhile my on-line play
money games have suffered weakness and annihilation. I love poker.
Poker sucks.
Lori, Kory, Dave and I played as a team in another Wits & Wagers
tournament Monday night at the New
Deal. We lost the first game, and I think we were chip-leaders in
the second game by the time we reached the last all-in question, which
was something like "what year did Henry VIII become the first head of
the Church of England?" I guessed sometime around the mid 16th century,
and settled on 1540-something. Others at the table were thinking a
little earlier or later, but we agreed that the answer should be taken
down a notch (due to the game's mechanics, lower guesses tend to work
better). Lori, who had been fairly quiet, piped up with a confident
guess at 1532. The year seemed reasonable so we submitted it as our
answer.
When the time came to bet on an answer, we were stumped. I was all for
saving our chips since we were in the lead, but that was risky too,
because other tables might spread big bets among all answers and one of
those would probably pay big. Ultimately I tentatively approached the
betting table with our whole stack, planning to cut and run if all the
other teams had placed bets on only one or two answers. No such luck;
the bets were all over the board. Kory came up behind me and muttered
something like, "Hey, you should just put it all on our answer." I
said, "Yeah, we're right this time," and put our whole stack on 1532.
The correct answer turned out to be 1534 and we won! We split the woot—
Dave got a gift certificate to the New Deal and Lori got a copy of
Cluzzle.
My only complaint about the tournament is that the time limit for
placing bets was not adhered to. I didn't mind the way most teams
waited till the last second to post their bets; that's within the
game's rules and a good strategy. What bothered me were the outright
cheaters. In particular there was one old fellah who would place his
bets, wait for the time to expire, then—after other players had
returned to their tables—he would slowly move his bets to other
positions. Sometimes he would even return to his table after posting,
then go back to the betting table well after the time was up! That was
frustrating for me to watch each round. I'm thinking betting shouldn't
be simultaneous; placing bets in a turn-based, rotating style might
work best for tourneys. Or the team with the lowest answer could bet
first, etc.
Mary Halbe dropped by our place the other night to gift us with some of
her famous vegan chocolate mousse. She also dropped off some mudslide
brownies for Dave. Dave came over Wednesday night for dessert. We
supplimented the brownies and mousse with soy ice cream. I ated too
much chocolate. Thanks Mary! That was delicious.
Greenbelt's festival of lights went well. Gina sold a lot of pottery
and demonstrated throwing. There were a variety of pretty crafts and it
looked like a good turnout.
My dad emailed a picture of a postcard he received 60 years ago:
Dad says:
"Uncle" John McConnell was one of
those close family friend uncles. I believe he and my parents had
met whilst Dad was working with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
before the war. Uncle John had been in the US Army, but I think
he was in the Red Cross by the time he sent this card. He spent a
number of years in Japan after the war. He loved Japan and the
Japanese.
A few years ago I ran
across this card and ones sent to my brother John and my parents.
I gave the other cards to brothers John and Dennis. This one
seemed an appropriate way to remember both Pearl Harbor and, more
importantly, the peace that finally came to Japan and the USA.
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