Tag: games

Co-opoly and other games people play

When we got to the dates category, I realized that not everyone knows them as well as I.

At the conference I attended in Syracuse at the end of April, we were encouraged to bring board games to play on that Tuesday evening. This was a new thing, and no one was sure if there would be any interest.

I brought backgammon, which I described here, and the word game Taboo, plus a couple decks of cards.

My group ended up playing three games. In Co-opoly. “players start a cooperative (a democratic business or organization). In order to survive as individuals and to strive for the success of their co-op, players make tough choices regarding big and small challenges while putting their teamwork to the test.”

It has elements of charades, Taboo, Monopoly, Life, and other games. Do we buy health insurance or risk going without? How about property insurance? The ending round is the most exciting. It did remind me once again that I CANNOT DRAW to save my life.

I had played Apples to Apples before, but never before was it such uproarious fun. “The object of the game is to win the most rounds by playing a ‘red apple’ card (which generally features a noun) from one’s hand to best ‘match’ that round’s communal ‘green apple’ card (which contains an adjective) as chosen by that round’s judging player.”

At one point there were nine of us, which was a great number for maximum fun. Here are some examples of how it plays out.

Balderdash was last. “One player reads out a question to the others. They each write down a made up, but believable answer and hand it to the person who read the question. This person then reads out the REAL answer and all the made up answers, in random order. The others must guess which is actually correct. You score moves on the board for each player who is conned into believing that your made up answer is the real one, as well as for choosing the real and often unbelievable answer.”

The person who has the REAL answer has to write that down too, and late at night, that sometimes didn’t happen. When we got to the dates category, I realized that not everyone knows them as well as I. For instance, someone read a date in 1946; one bluff was VJ Day, and a couple people were fooled. I had written down the Suez Canal crisis for a date in 1956, which I gather was too vague a reference. When I drew a card, it was for January 19, 1946, which I KNEW was Dolly Parton’s birthday.

Elsewhere, people were playing Cards Against Humanity, which, until it was floated on our listserv the week before, I was not familiar with and still have not played. On the other hand, no poker was played, in a break with tradition.

B is for the game Boggle (ABC W)

While this is a 4X4 Boggle cube, there are 5X5 cubes as well.

Boggle, Wikipedia says, is a “word game… using a plastic grid of lettered dice, in which players attempt to find words in sequences of adjacent letters.

“The game begins by shaking a covered tray of 16 cubic dice, each with a different letter printed on each of its six sides. The dice settle into a 4×4 tray so that only the top letter of each cube is visible.

“After they have settled into the grid, a three-minute sand timer is started and all players…” search “for words that can be constructed from the letters of sequentially adjacent cubes… -horizontally, vertically, and diagonally neighboring.

“Words must be at least three letters long, may include singular and plural (or other derived forms) separately, but may not use the same letter cube more than once per word.

“Each player records all the words he or she finds by writing on a private sheet of paper. After three minutes have elapsed, all players must immediately stop writing and the game enters the scoring phase.

“In the scoring phase, each player reads off his or her list of discovered words. If two or more players wrote the same word, it is removed from all players’ lists… For all words remaining after duplicates have been eliminated, points are awarded based on the length of the word. The winner is the player whose point total is highest.”

When the Daughter was younger, and we played at home, we let her find three-letter words (for which she would get 1 point) as well as 4 letters (2 points), et al. while her mother and I could use words only four letters (1 point) or more. Now I’m not sure I’d give her that advantage.

While this is a 4X4 cube, there are 5X5 cubes as well.

There are SCRABBLE dictionaries that can be used to ascertain the validity of a word.

You’ll find Boggle online here and here and undoubtedly, elsewhere.

From the letters above, some of the words one could find include:

bead, bear, bent, bred, bunt, darn, dead, dare, deal, dear, earn, near, lane, lard, lure, rare, read, real, rear, rent, rued, rune, teal, tear, tern, tube, tuna, tune, turn 

beard, bread, brute, dread, laden, renal, tuber, tuned

ranted

bearded, breaded, dreaded

Can you find others? There is at least one more 7-letter word.

ABC Wednesday – Round 20

Y is for Yahtzee

The strategy comes when one gets a roll that could be used in more than one box.

There’s a game that involves five dice and a score sheet called Yahtzee, which I’m teaching to my daughter. I like it because, while it involves an element of luck, it also requires some strategy.

“In the upper section, each box is scored by summing the total number of dice faces matching that box. For example, if a player were to roll three ‘twos,’ the score would be recorded as 6 in the twos box. If a player scores a total of at least 63 points, [which corresponds to three-of-a-kind for each of the six rows], a bonus of 35 points is added to the upper section score.

“The lower section contains a number of poker-themed combinations with specific point values
Three-Of-A-Kind (At least three dice showing the same face) – Sum of all dice
Four-Of-A-Kind (At least four dice showing the same face -Sum of all dice
Full House (A three-of-a-kind and a pair) – 25 points
Small Straight (Four sequential dice: 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5, or 3-4-5-6) – 30 points
Large Straight (Five sequential dice: 1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6) – 40 points
Yahtzee (All five dice showing the same face) 50 points
Chance (Any combination) often acts as a discarded box for a turn that will not fit in another category”

The strategy comes when one gets a roll that could be used in more than one box. For instance, if one has rolled 2-2-6-6-6, should it be taken as three sixes in the upper box, as three of a kind in the lower box, or as a full house in the lower box? One has to guesstimate how likely it is to get another roll in the categories not chosen. In other words, math probabilities are involved, though one does not have to be a human calculator to enjoy the game.

Given the number of years the game has been sold, it’s possible that you have a copy of the game in your attic right now.

ABC Wednesday – Round 13

B is for Backgammon

Backgammon is a simple game, at least in concept, where one rolls a pair of dice to move the checker pieces around the board.

When I was a kid, there was this weird board on the backside of my checkerboard; I had NO idea what it was there for. As it turned out, it was almost perfect for a game called backgammon. I never learned it, though, until I was in the latter stages of college in the mid-1970s. I went to a bar in New Paltz, NY, appropriately named Bacchus, and saw a bunch of people playing this game. I eventually befriended one of the players, a townie named Anne, and ended up playing a lot of the game.

I discovered that backgammon is an ancient game, certainly invented in some form in southwest Asia, perhaps Persia, before A.D. 800. A version of the game spread from India to China and Japan. It was introduced to Europe by the Arabs. From BOARD and TABLE Games from Many Civilizations by R.C. Bell: “Early in the seventeenth century, a new variant appeared…the old game enjoyed a tremendous revival and swept through Europe, being played in England as backgammon, in France as tric-trac…in Germany as puff, in Spain as tablas reales…”

It is a simple game, at least in concept, where one rolls a pair of dice to move the checker pieces around the board. In the board above, the white pieces move around the board to get all its pieces into its inner board (the lower right quadrant) while the black pieces move around the board to get all its pieces into ITS inner board (the upper right quadrant) before bearing off. The clash occurs when an opposing piece wants to land on your space. A space with two or more checkers is safe, but one with only one checker is vulnerable to be hit and have that piece to start all over again.

All of this is laid out quite well in this rule book.

A lot of the calculation in backgammon involves probability. The odds of getting hit, specifically. Above are all the combinations of two dice. Say you have a piece that’s six unrestricted squares away; it’s quite vulnerable to a throw of 1/5, 2/4, 3/3, 4/2, 5/1, but also 6/1, 6/2, 6/3, 6/4, 6/5, or 6/6, or even 2/2, since throwing doubles means you get four of the number. In other words, there’s a 12 out of 36 chance of getting hit. Whereas being 11 away, there is only a 2 in 36 chance (5/6, 6/5) of being hit.

There is a doubling cube, whereby one raises the stakes of the game, but it can be played without using it; probably sacrilege, I know. I play at least once a month, and I enjoy it greatly.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Ramblin' with Roger
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