Weekend Gaming

On Thursday I still hadn't found anyone else who was going up north to take the two Citadels games. Then I saw a request for games and toys from a location right down the street from me. Midreshet Lindenbaum is hosting numerous families from up north who are displaced from their homes.

So on Friday I dropped by and delivered the two games to them. I also issued a general invitation to come play on Wed evenings, and I left my phone number if they needed someone to come to play with the kids.

Friday evening I ate at the Kummer's, non-gamers. Their kids play the usual fare. They have this boxed poker game, essentially a deck of cards, some chips, and rules for poker in a glorified box.

Some friends of the kids were also over and were going to play when I asked to join them. One of them was really suspicious about me, and had a hard time believing that I knew anything about games. I don't know what he suspected me of, exactly. He began to grill me about games to see if I was telling the truth: What is Pokemon? How do you play Magic? What are the two types of Warhammer?

Then he kept complaining: why are you acting like a thirteen year old? You're a grownup!

I played a few hands of poker with chips and lost gloriously.

Saturday for lunch Tal and I ate at some other friends. After lunch we played Rummikub with the father and kids. Rummikub does not represent much of a challenge for me, but it's a reasonable pastime. I warned them that I was pretty good at the game. Between Tal and me playing together, we won fairly handily.

As the other players tried to rearrange the melds trying to figure out if they could get out more pieces, I kept repeating this mantra: You can't do it unless you have the black eleven. You can't do it unless you have the black eleven. You can't ... And lo and behold, they couldn't figure out what to do with the last black nine and ten, or the last two elevens.

Yehuda