Shabbat Gaming

I had a family from Raanana over for the first time for lunch, and the guy stayed after to play Scrabble with me. He was a tough opponent; he had obviously played in tournaments before. He played the only bingo during the game, but I beat him by a 50 point margin by playing a lot of double/double and double/triple moves.

Meanwhile, in two online Scrabble games that just ended, I played 7 bingos between them. That's a streak I don't expect to repeat. Playing bingos (or words at all) in online Scrabble isn't the same. Since you are not permitted to submit an illegal word, you just keep playing around and clicking submit until the game accepts your play. It takes a lot of the edge out of the game, and it's definitely different than face to face play.

Shabbat I went to my brother's and the kids wanted to play games (or hear stories) the whole time, even the five year old (I think he's five). I played Set with two of the younger ones, and I was shocked with how good them were, even the five year old. I didn't take sets myself; I only called Set and let them take the sets after they found them. So I would have killed them, technically. But I think they're going to get much better really fast.

The other game I played was Dominion, three times. I lost the first game taking Conspirators and Pawns against my brother who was simply taking silvers and golds. Actually, I also did some bad planning and had some bad luck. I took a Mine early when I should have taken a Market (before I settled on the Conspirator strategy), and I got to use it all of once during the game.

I requested the same set again, and this time I played more diverse and took more Markets and Spies. I won this game.

In the third game, there were no bonus actions on any cards, but there was Throne Room and Black Market. I picked well with Black Market while Ben had the same luck problem I faced during my first game. I had a runaway win, even though Ben had accidentally stacked 18 provinces instead of 12 (I took 11 of them, while Ben took 6).

Scrabble: The Two Letter Words

With the introduction of the words QI and ZA, casual players may want to have a handy rule around to let them play with the Scrabble zealots.

You could not allow or not score two-letter words. Unfortunately, several good two letter words should score (such as AX), and near the end of the game you may not have much else to play.

An alternative is to limit the legal two letter words to those that an actual human might use in day-to-day life.

Here are the currently legal two letter Scrabble words. Words with an asterisk (*) are candidates for exclusion from casual games. Words with a question mark (?) are borderline cases.

AA* a type of lava, what you say when going over a cliff
AB* abdominal muscle
AD advertisement
AE* one
AG* agricultural
AH sound of surprise
AI* a sloth
AL* an Indian tree
AM opposite of AIN'T
AN singular
AR? the letter R
AS comparative
AT locational
AW cute overload
AX chops wood
AY* shortened form of AYE, not what Fonzie says
BA* the soul in Egyptian mythology, not a baby ball
BE or not
BI bisexual
BO* shortened form of beau
BY positional
DE* from (like in foreign names)
DO or do not, there is no try
ED shortened form of EDUCATION
EF? the letter F
EH Canadian punctuation mark
EL* elevated subway, where a Cockney tells you to go when he's drunk
EM? the letter M, or a printer's mark
EN? the letter N, or a printer's mark
ER hesitation
ES* a shortened form of the letter S
ET* past tense of eat
EX where my money goes
FA note in the musical scale
FE* a Hebrew letter
GO move or start, and a nice game
HA sound of amusement
HE him
HI hello
HM* sound of consideration, shortened form of HMM
HO? sound of surprise, not a loose woman
ID part of the mind
IF conjectural
IN locational
IS existential
IT object identification
JO* a sweetheart
KA* the spirit in Egyptian mythology
KI* the Chinese spiritual force
LA note in the musical scale, or word substitution in a song
LI* a Chinese measurement
LO and behold
MA your mom
ME not you
MI note in the musical scale
MM* sound of satisfaction, shortened form of MMM
MO* shortened form of moment
MU? Greek letter
MY possessive
NA* not, shortened form of NAH
NE* born with the name, shortened form of NEE
NO negative
NU Greek letter, also sound of impatience
OD* hypothetical force of natural power
OE* whirlwind of the Faerce islands
OF originating from
OH sound of surprise
OI* alternate for OY
OM* sound of a mantra
ON positional
OP* style of art, or shortened form of OPERATION
OR logical alternative
OS* various obscure definitions, such as a bone
OW sound of pain
OX moo
OY sound of despair
PA your dad
PE* Hebrew letter
PI Greek letter, 3.14
QI* alternate for KI
RE note in the musical scale
SH* shut up, shortened form of SHH
SI* alternate for TI
SO what
TA* sound of gratitude (this is a ? for some cultures)
TI note in the musical scale
TO directional
UH sound of hesitation
UM sound of thinking
UN* one
UP locational
US collective
UT* a note in an archaic French musical scale
WE collective
WO* shortened form of WOE
XI* Greek letter, alternate form of CHI
XU* Vietnamese coin
YA* you, or yes
YE you, archaic
YO it's my art center
ZA* shortened form of pizza

Note: If you allow QI and ZA, you should reduce the values of the letters Q and Z to 8.

Games at Keshet Yonatan / Nahal J'ilabun

To the weekend shabbaton with my synagogue, I brought an assortment of games for all occasions: Antike (as a Risk-replacement) and Dominion for the boys, Pit, Scrabble, a deck of cards, and some other light games for the adults, Puerto Rico for Rachel, Nadine, and me.

We didn't get to play all of them, but I didn't expect to.

Antike

I've won the respect of the boys enough to get them to try Antike. Thanks to the combat nature of the game and the elegance of the rules, they got into it. I opted to stay out and only guide the turns.

The brilliant rondel was a source of frustration for the boys, who often wanted to get iron, arm, and maneuver all on the same turn, but it was also grudgingly respected already by mid-game. It took them all a while to figure out that points were to be gained from more than just building and moving armies, but the game also elegantly guided them in that direction. So it was all good.

Still, the game played out quite differently from the ones I usually play. For one, one of the boys got beaten down quite badly after neglecting to protect any of his cities. He never recovered from this, but he still said that he liked the game. The boy who did the beating won the game. With his massive number of cities, he spent three turns gaining 6 of each resource, and then a fourth gaining six more cities. After that he built a string of temples and destroyed those of his neighbors.

It all looked ideal, but it was actually very close. One other boy was just a few ships away from destroying two temples on his last turn, which would have given him the victory.

Hormones

That was all they played. I took a nap, and when I woke up they had managed to find some girls staying in the field school who were willing to follow them around while they all discussed what they should do.

Scrabble

The adults played on Saturday night. With two other non-gamers, I tried Parade, but it didn't go over that well. While Parade has barely any rules, the implications were too confusing for one of the players, and not interesting enough for the other.

Finally, we played two games of Scrabble, one four player and one three player. The four player was a close affair that Rachel might have won if I hadn't brought only the Third-edition Scrabble dictionary with me. The other two players, both non-gamers, were overwhelmed by our modest Scrabble prowess and unfamiliar with any of the ridiculous Scrabble words. Rachel tried to end the game with QI, but the other players wouldn't accept it because it wasn't in the dictionary (it's only in the fourth-edition).

One of the non-gamers played truly pathetically, such as playing an R onto PURE to make PURER, with no bonuses. The other one played better, but had poor racks with lots of I's, and so wanted to try again. He, Rachel, and I played in the second game.

The second game I got ridiculously good tiles, including both blanks, Z, K, X, a few S's and all of the D's. I extended QUOIT to QUOITED, landing on a triple word score, placed TAX onto a triple words score (with the T turning HIS into THIS), and bingoed with a hand containing EGATION; I was looking for an N, but eventually found a free L. Their scores were close to each other (a few points), and I was impressed with his dogged determination.

Pictures and Thoughts

The weekend was lovely, as was the company of my fellow synagogue members.


This was a small pool created from a tributary spring that feeds into the Sea of Galilee.

Around this pool, though not entirely captured in my picture frame, were religious Jews, non-religious Jews, Haredi Jews, Bedouin, Christian Arab, Moslem Arab, and American Christian. Some rode in on dune buggies, some drove in, some hiked in, some smoked, some barbecued, some wore modest clothing, and some wore swim trunks.

The whole scene was a as cosmopolitan Israeli as one could ever expect to see, and it was all unremarkably peaceful and pleasant. Because that's what happens most of the time in Israel.



Rachel, the dolphin. Rachel is swimming 3.5 kilometers across a chord of the Kinneret this Wednesday, to raise money for Sadnat Shiluv.

Sadnat Shiluv encourages maximum integration of special people into the community. It works with children from kindergarten and elementary school until young adulthood. Currently, its only hostel houses six young adults and offers them a place to live, work, study and lead an independent life while being an active part of the Rosh Tzurim community.

Around 100 women will be participating, each of whom must raise at least 2,000 NIS. Rachel's entrance fee was sponsored by my employer, Tech-Tav Writing and Documentation Services.


Some of our synagogue members relax on a hike in Nahal J'ilabun.


Nahal J'ilabun


Nahal J'ilabun


Me (note the flower in the hair)

More pictures on my Facebook profile

Scrabble With Rachel

Rachel's last act in Israel (other than packing up the Pesach dishes) was to toast me in a Scrabble game 491 to 288. She started with JEWEL, and though I got my own 48 point word eventually, after she scored two Bingos, several Ss, and a Z or two, I was just hoping to score at least half of what she did.

So she left for America on a happy note. Well, happy for her, anyway.

Scrabble With Mom

Mom occasionally beats me in Scrabble, even many years after I think she can't do it any more. There's nothing better than being surprised by your mom's mental acuity just when you think she's getting older.

This was not one of those times.

It might simply have been the letters. But on several of her turns, I pointed out a number of locations where she could score twice as much using the letters she just placed on the board. Even with that help, I played a bingo and won by a large margin. And without using the new two-letter words from 4th edition, with which she is unfamiliar (QI, ZA, etc).

Maybe next time.

Yehuda

Scrabble, Interrupted; and Movies

Rachel and I started but didn't finish a Scrabble game. I was to go first, and I had all vowels, so I tossed in. Rachel went first instead. A few rounds later she had all vowels, and she complained for several rounds before I managed to convince her to skip a turn and toss them in.

By that point she was behind some 50 points and didn't feel like continuing.

My Sister's Keeper: Lovely tearjerker with beautiful visuals and music. I'm not entirely thrilled with the direction the story takes at the revelation scene near the end of the movie; it's a cop out. Instead of resolving the difficult moral problem the story raised, it all gets pushed aside, unresolved. Nevertheless, the revelation, given the characters involved, is sensible. Somewhat too much Hollywood. Still lovely.

Dead Man Walking: Fantastic movie that proves that you don't have to cut away from the difficult moral problem raised. This movie goes straight into the heart of what other movies shy away from and keeps going right down to the bitter, inevitable conclusion. Highly recommended.

Up In The Air: Hollywood formula, pleasant, shallow, and predictable, not at all deserving of the praise it received.

The Boat That Rocked: The equivalent formula from Britain. A trip through the early rock-and-roll era. The sides of the issue (rock music) are presented in a totally one-sided manner, as are many of the people involved. Still, the characters on the boat are sometimes fun. Also pleasant.

Crows N Bones magazine has an interview with Reiver Games, my publisher.

Silvoor Biological Sanctuary

Friday I walked around the Silvoor Biological Sanctuary ...







One of several plaques



















Rickety bridge

I also stopped at the University Coop bookstore, which was a waste of time for anyone not interested in either U of M branded memorabilia or textbooks.

Sat afternoon Rachel and I started a Scrabble game, but she quit about halfway in, when it was clear she was losing. She was also playing with the most liberal two-letter word list I've ever seen (included CE, VE, VI, and others that are not generally accepted).

Rachel Toasted Me in Scrabble

I had the Z, Q, X, J, and K, and two of the S's. I even got a U with my Q. Rachel had both blanks and the other two S's.

But I never had letter synergy. I had Q and U ... and I, I, U, A, and E. I can do something with that, but not much. And Rachel scored most of her points with two, three, or four secondary words off of each word she played, using my letters to earn her points.

Rachel: 377, Jon: 304

Scrabble; fear it.

Some Game Plays With My Synagogue Group

On Yom Haatzmaut some of the members of our synagogue went to the country for a short tiyul and BBQ. I'm happy to say that, again, mine was the best and quickest BBQ grill and I used only one match and no lighter fluid. I'm a man.

I also brought along Scrabble. I wonder why I haven't done that before, since many of the adults in this group are Scrabble lovers, if not quite as competitive as Rachel and me.

We played a four-player game of Scrabble. LHO opened with a bingo. I ended the game a few points behind her and a few dozen points ahead of the other two players.

As many of the same group also went away for an entire weekend this last weekend, I also brought Scrabble. I didn't have to bring Apples to Apples, since that is already one of the hit games among the kids there, and someone else had brought a copy. I should really get a hold of Jungle Speed, since it's becoming popular in Israel (my non-gamer 20 year old daughter went and bought a copy).

I also brought Antike, hoping to get some of the boys to play it instead of Risk, which is what they always play. Unfortunately, they had just started a game of Risk by the time I found them after lunch, and I couldn't convince them to abandon it.

Instead I played Antike with Nadine and Cliff. Cliff lives only a few blocks from me and plays these games all the time, but never has the time to make it to game night, or even Game Days. A pity.

Cliff really liked Antike, and thinks his own boys will, too. Nadine manages the tactical elements fine, but is still working on the strategy (in her words). I was very happy playing it again, and was beginning to do some long term planning moves. Unfortunately, we had to interrupt the game midway as we were scheduled for a hike.

One other game I played, sort of: Zingo. Zingo is a little like a kid's game of Bingo. Using the correct rules, two plastic pictures pop out of the bottom of a plastic contraption, and each player has to shout the name of one or more of the items if they have it on their board (with penalties for shouting an item that isn't on your board). So it's way more of a game than Bingo.

However, I joined a grandmother playing with her 4 year old, and her method of playing was for each player to take a turn. The player checks to see if the tile will fit on his or her board, and if it does, he or she just takes it. Otherwise it goes to the next player who can use it. Then it is the next player's turn. In other words, the game was changed to a decision-less skill-less game.

The kids still liked it, and had learned the words. but she also wandered away about 2/3 of the way through the game. I guess winning isn't that important when you aren't bringing anything to the table.

Scrabble Session

Rachel	Jon
24 BUNTED (8,3)	14 NTH (D8,5) [no vowels]
50 eXAM (7,2), AB, MU	28 RECENT (D4, 2)
69 PIVOT (7,8), PE, ID	60 ABJURED (D7,4)
117 CLOZES (D2,13), PIVOTS	86 OASIS (D1,8), ON, AT [Yeah, but I was desperate]
132 GREW (4,1)	114 DAZE (5,11) [Again, desperate]
167 SAGE (D5,15), DAZES	138 YANG (D1,1)
192 BOINg (3,3), BE, OW	176 VOICER (2,10)
213 LOOK (D12,3), LE, OD	212 WAKE (15,1)
232 HINNY (10,6)	238 FE (1,14), FE, ER
251 OILRIG (11,9), YO	268 GIRTH (D15,11)
299 EQUAL (6,5), EMU, APE, LID [And that does it]	285 TAP (D11,2), IT, SALE, POD
317 FAD (12,8), YOD	306 FAIR (D12,8)
331 AM (13,8), AM	305 (-1)
332 (+1)

Rachel Gone to Canada

Rachel and I played Scrabble: I won 323 to 291. I got the Q, X, J, K, 3 S's, and a blank. And I was able to play my Q on a triple word off of her Z word (scoring the Z as well). And I got to play SEXILY.

Then we had a nice dinner, and then Rachel went off to Canada for a week. She'll be bringing back some games with her (Dominion, Pit, Taluva, Moot, Scrabble). We've been playing on a neighbor's Scrabble set, as we lost the board and some of the pieces to ours, somehow.

That is all.

Yehuda

Rachel Tanks Me in a Scrabble Game

391 to 291. No bingos. Lots of cool words, though. Kana. Azon. Leonine. Dixit.

Blogging: Got my first advertiser for Purple Pawn: Invisible City Productions. Hope it achieves something good for them; PP is doing decent commissions on Amazon, but it's nice to get real advertisers to deal with. If you want to advertise on PP, we have a special: first month only $15. Regular price is $2/day. Of course, you're also welcome to advertise on this blog (same deal).

Gaming: Borrowed Age of Steam from one of the group members, and desperately hope to play it again soon. It's one of my top ten games and I've only played it around three times. I'm keen to try Brass, but I'm still not willing to pay $60 for a game. I also finally read all the rules to, and therefore am ready to play, Merchants of Amsterdam, which I picked up a few weeks ago (you can get it for $15 at Amazon, so I guess I overpaid).

Also on Amazon: Cleopatra and the Society of Architects ($20), Bootleggers ($12), Igloo Pop ($10), The Bridges of Shangri-La ($10), Goldbrau ($12), Igels Card Game ($4.50), Indus ($20), Carcassonne: The Discovery ($14), Carcassonne: King and Scout ($0.50).

If you live in Canada, I asked Tao of Starlit Citadel for a copy of Dominion, but he was out. I ordered it instead from German Games, and they were super-nice and quick. I just heard from SC that they got a returned order which included a copy of Dominion; so while they're waiting to restock Dominion, you can grab the one copy they have in stock.

My step-daughter came in after shabbat and told me that she played Jungle Speed at friends. Second mention of Jungle Speed in the last few weeks; must be taking off in Israel.

Also, BGG will be down for a day, mid-Sunday to mid-Monday.

I need to add more structure to my life.

Yehuda

Random parenting fact: For me, the one phrase that I repeated most throughout my parenting was "Don't lock anyone into or out of anything." Odd, because I don't recall ever hearing that when I was a child.

Scrabble Tournament at the Dead Sea

The Sam Orbaum National Scrabble tournament will be at the Dead Sea on March 4 to 6.

You get all the amenities of the Dead Sea hotel, as well as Scrabble playing at all levels of play. Twelve scheduled games over three days, in three divisions.

Scrabble w/Rachel: 407 to 395

Rachel won. She had a first round (second player) bingo with MOONIES. I had a late game bingo with POUNdING off a free G. Could have made POUNcING, too, but I was hoping to utilize the d.

I also dumped a Z at 1,2, i.e. right in front of the top-left Triple word score, thinking that there were not too many words with Z as the second letter. I knew about AZO and AZURE, and I left myself with URE in my hand, so I only needed to pick an A. I figured it would be harder for Rachel to get it. She didn't wait however, and simply played off the Z without getting the triple word score.

Two blog links:

Secure Immunity describes his love for Cosmic Encounter and Talisman in the context of Ameritrash and Eurogaming.

Chris Farrell on how to write better rule books for games.

Anagrams Still Pleases

Anagrams, the older but better word game that comes in a Scrabble box, is sometimes able to please my non-gaming guests on Friday night. Assuming they evidence any interest in a gaming activity at all.

I'm pretty good at the game, so in order not to make it frustrating for newer players, I pretend not to see certain words, especially the most obvious ones. The most obvious ones, because most of the time another player will find them within a few seconds.

Sometimes, though, I start the game doing this only to find that one or more of my opponents is actually just as good as I am, or nearly as good. Such was the case last night. One of my guests was nearly as good, and did some excellent anagramming. We ended the game fairly close in word counts. The other player wasn't quite so good, but neither did she have anything to be ashamed of, getting in a number of excellent anagrams that I didn't notice.

Which is one of the joys of Anagrams over Scrabble; clever words are still enjoyed. Not just high scoring plays.

Hasbro Flexes it's Muscle with Scrabulous

We knew it was coming. Hasbro has ordered the creators of the popular Facebook application Scrabulous to cease and desist.

Like in so many similar instances, the events unfold as follows:

1. Big Company doesn't give the people what they want; namely, a Facebook application version of their game.

Knowing a company like Hasbro, this is probably because the idea has been under discussion for a year while they look into the millions of dollars the idea would require, the vast majority of which would be spent on security, DRM, locks, logins, pay schemes and other features to make the idea as difficult as possible to the people who actually want to use it.

2. Enterprising Young Dudes whip one up without too much trouble in a day or so.

3. It explodes into popularity.

4. Big Company sues Young Dudes. Allegedly for doing so without their permission and for providing a service which BC is unwilling or unable to provide. Or in the name of protecting the company. But really, BC is doing this in order to buy out YDs, or because it's finally ready to launch its own application and doesn't want the competition.

We've seen this story before.

PhotoshopTalent is running a contest which claims to be a "board game design" contest, but which is obviously simply a "funny board game like picture" contest.

The Ithaca Journal gets nostalgic over evening card games from times of yore.

The Leaf Chronicle (TN) finds local places that gamers go.

Another violent outburst and robbery at a card game (Racine). But, hey, if you're going to get all primal at a card game, don't do it a week from the date of your parole. (Sheboygan)

Yehuda

Scrabble Reviews: Word Freak and Word Wars

Word Freak

Word Freak is an enjoyable book on gaming obsession, and a must read for any Scrabble fan. Steve Fatsis, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal, took a year to follow some of the main American figures in the Scrabble tournament scene. In so doing, he became a bit of a word freak himself, climbing in the ranks of national Scrabble standings to a respectable level.

The reading is easy-going, but the pictures he paints of his main characters are rather freaky, to say the least. In some cases, downright disturbing. Many seem to have no other life or work, have hygiene or health problems as well as maturity problems, and a variety of other neuroses. The only place these guys (for it is mostly guys) feel comfortable is while rattling a bag of tiles or anagramming. Despite this, they quibble with each other more often than find friendship, appearing to tolerate each other out of a need for a worthy opponent to play.

The book also covers historical topics about the origins of the game, the ranking system, and the international scene (with a mention of our own Jerusalem Scrabble club).

What's made clear from this book is that the game of Scrabble played by most of us bears little resemblance to the game played at the tournament level. While we scramble our letter around looking for words we actually know, which makes the game primarily a verbal game, tournament players scramble the letters around looking for memorized patterns and scoring points, which makes it mostly a pattern recognition and odds calculation game.

Myself, I prefer to just play Anagrams.

Word Wars

This is, essentially, a movie version of the above book, but less so. In fact, the producers were inspired by the book Word Freak, and even interviewed Steven Fatsis several times during the movie.

The movie follows four characters in the run up to the National Scrabble Championship, three of which were also central characters in the book. However, the coverage is far less thorough. We learn some of the main character traits of these figures, but not much else. With some better editing and some more backstory, we might become more attached to the characters.

It briefly touches on the New York park Scrabble scene, but mentions nothing about other cities, the origins of the game, the ranking system, other tournaments, and so on. If I hadn't read the book, I would have found the movie interesting, but short and shallow. Having read the book, the movie had little to offer.

Still, if you haven't read the book, and you're obsessed with Scrabble, and this movie turns up on TV, you will enjoy it.

Yehuda

Scrabble With Mom

My new job takes me to Beit Shemesh every day (for the moment), and since I get off at 1:00, I have been popping over to my parents house to check up on them.

I also asked my mother to play a game of Scrabble with me. In truth, I was kind of wondering how my Mom's game abilities were holding up now that she was nearing 70.

I needn't have worried. While I certainly knew more "Scrabble" words, being an active player, she is still a good player. Unfortunately for her, I picked every S and at least half of the other rich tiles, which allowed me to score two big words. Aside from those two, we were about even.

I'm glad. My father is doing his new course of chemotherapy. It's not giving him many ill effects like similar past treatments have, but then it's also not got much chance of success. Nevertheless, he is upbeat and happy, which is nice to see.

I had my parents pick up a copy of Blokus for me that someone was selling for $10. I also borrowed their old game Crossword Dominoes, curious to remember what it was about.

Game News

Poor Sydney got left off the final game board of the new Australian Monopoly. Boo Hoo. You can hear an interview with Monopoly's Marketing Manager about the new edition here.

Local Discovery Channel stores are shutting down. These games may be available at the stores at greatly reduced prices.

Perplex City also suddenly decided to shutter its follow up game until further notice.

Master of Maya is a new cellphone fantasy-themed trading card game.

Hasbro is trying to turn more of its board games into movies. Meanwhile, Brash Entertainment is trying to turn more movies into video games. Meanwhile, Fantasy Flight Games is trying to turn more video games into board games.

Yehuda

Weekend Gaming

First of all, I would like to apologize to the writer of most-expensive.net . He wrote a small post about the two most expensive chess sets that got Dugg about a zillion times, while my post about the top ten most expensive board games got Dugg only 6 times (now 9 times).

In a fit of frustration, bad manners, and probably envy, I called his site a "spam" site after a cursory glance at his post (it looked like a spam site to me), and then proceeded to wonder out loud on Digg as to why his post would get Dugg a zillion times and mine didn't.

My attack was inexcusable and rude. Most-expensive.net is not a spam site, and I'm very sorry for writing that. Furthermore, if I don't get Dugg, that's my problem, not his.

Scrabble

We'll start with a game of Scrabble I played earlier in the week with Rachel. I got the Z, Q, X, J, K, two S's, and both blanks, the last two at the same time. I'm assuming that you can guess the results of that game.

Let's move on to the game I played Friday night with both Rachel and Tal, my 14 year old. Tal is still a beginner to Scrabble, and thus she and I decided to play without points.

Rachel was aghast. I think her brain began to explode.

She kept wondering what the point of the game was if she didn't know if she was winning or not. She put down words and tried to taunt me that it wasn't her best word because it didn't matter, and then she was confused when that didn't seem to bother me. In case you couldn't figure this out, she's kind of competitive.

I was happy that my first word was HACKER.

Tal's Gang

Tal had a gang of friends over and they played Apples to Apples, and then followed it up with The Menorah Game. They all like the game wished that I wasn't changing the theme.

Puerto Rico

Rachel and I played as shabbat went out. We played with:

• Assembly Line 1/1 - All your production buildings have additional circle.
• Poorhouse 2/1 - +1 GP if you have 0 or 1 GP after building.
• Small Fashion District 2/1 - +2 GP for trading indigo.
• Small Warehouse 3/1 - Store all barrels of one good.
• Irrigation 4/2 - +1 barrel of one good you produced.
• Commodity Exporters 5/2 - +1 VP when shipping indigo or sugar.
• Large Market 5/2 - +2 GP for trade.
• Discretionary Hold 6/2 - 1. Store 3 barrels of any combination of goods. 2. Place 1 barrel on each full ship for +1 VP.
• Factory 7/3 - +0/1/2/3/5 GP for producing 1/2/3/4/5 goods.
• Large General Workhouse (2 circles) 8/3 - Produce any barrels with matching plantations.
• Large Business 8/3 - 1. -1 GP cost for each building. 2. +1 VP if you ship, once per Captain phase.
• Wharf 9/3 - Load once onto your own ship of infinite capacity.
• Metalworkers 10/4 - +2 GP/quarry.
• Reserves 10/4 - +2 VP/good on your board.
• Fortress 10/4 - +1 VP/3 colonists.
• City Hall 10/4 - +1 VP/indigo building.
• Custom's House 10/4 - +1 VP/4 shipping points.

It was an unusual game in that every single building, with the exception of Large Business, Wharf, Coffee Roaster, and Metalworkers was bought. Yes, including all of the 4 to 6 cost buildings. I think I finally have some good replacements for Office.

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JSGC Games Day is being planned for Wed, April 4. Come one come all.

Yehuda

Two Hippos

Originally from a Paul Crum cartoon:

Two hippos are standing around in a swamp. One looks around confused. Finally, he says: "I keep thinking it's Tuesday."

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Peter Roizen writes to suggest Wildwords to me, after I ragged on Scrabble.

Another reader is looking for a "Jewish themed RPG". Any suggestions?

See you on the other side of shabbat ...

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The Goat Game, helping women build better relationships. Among other things, you can learn "flirting without coming on like a tease".

Yehuda