Monthly Archives: February 2006

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Lunch Time Tichuers 02/28/2006

Its interesting how one sided Tichu can get sometimes… For a whole game, one team will score all of the points. And it certinally seemed that way this time. However, the last 3 hands were enough for the other team to come back from behind and win. BTW, this score card is missing a desparate Grand Tichu call made by myself at the last hand.


The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed

GT/T Team #1 GT/T GT/T Team #2 GT/T
Ed & Mike Dan & Mark
T+
210
    -10  
 
295
    105 T+
  330    
270
T+
  330     570 T+
T-
315
  T+ 685  
 
395
    605 T-
  430    
670
 
  565 T+  
735
 
 
765
T+   735  
 
930
T+   770  

Disc Golf 02/26/2006

Sport capital

If disc golf is considered a sport, then I picked the right city to live in! I like how their icon is a char. Sitting is not a sport!

Bathroom

So I arrived early to practice. And after a while, I had to go to the bathroom. The problem is that this park is wide open. There are no convienient bushes to use. So I wander over to the baseball buildings and am greeted with this sign. Gah! What am I supposed to do now?

Knizia puzzle

John arrives and gets us to help untangle his disc retriever. He tells us its a new Knizia game.

Disc in water

Which was promptly put to good use at hole 2. On hole 3, I threw a pretty good approach shot which landed 10′ from the hole. The trees on hole 4 held John’s long range throws back.

Prickly bush

At hole 5, John’s disc lands pretty far into a prickly bush. Fortunately for John, Rehana volunteers to retrieve it (earning her a disc for her efforts). And on hole 7, both Mike and myself putted for around 30′!

Mike of blinding

At hole 9, Mike looses his disc high in the trees. And after it is knocked down, John comments on being blinded by the Sun. Which reminded me of my +1 Mike of blinding. And also at this hole, I had a pretty good yoga putt (where I hold on to the tree and bend around it to throw it into the hole).

Tee off

At hole 12 is my best throw for that hole so far. Certinally within sight of the hole. Our mantra when we throw is “There are no trees.” Just pretend there are no trees and throw! It is your mind that causes the disc to fall to the ground…

We also saw this lady who hooked her dog up to this sled like contraption. I wonder what that was about. At least she wasn’t riding it.

retrieval #2

And whats another water hole without a retrieval attempt?

Game Day 02/23/2006

Game #1

Lexio

Another game of Lexio for us. It is a game with a good “feel” factor. The tiles are large and attractive. And today the luck was with me. I finished in 2nd.

Game #2

Hacienda

And another game of Hacienda for us. This time, I decided to try and connect as many markets as possible. What was amusing was that I had complained about always playing this game as the start player. So when Mike pulls out my blue score marker when determining the start player, I seriously thought that he “fixed” it (still do in fact :-).

Tihcu

Ahh, such a one sided game. But I can’t complain since I was on the winning side. 😉 The only mistake that I made was not calling Tichu after Marty called Tichu before the pass. In my hand was a number of winners (Aces, Phoenix, etc). So I figure he must of had a bomb. It turned out that he did have one but broke it up to play over my straight.


The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed

GT/T Team #1 GT/T GT/T Team #2 GT/T
MarkH & Mike Marty & Doug
 
105
    -5  
  305   T- -105  
T+ 455     -55  
 
525
    -25  
  640 T+  
60
 
 
730
  GT+ 270  
  930     270  
  1130   GT- 70  

Disc Golf 02/23/2006

Tee off
Approach shot

We had a chili cook-off at work this afternoon, complete with beer. Once beer is in the picture, employees go home afterwards. So, since I came home at 4:30, I decided to head out and do a round of disc golf. It was sunny and some what warm. However, there was a constant breeze. I was surprised that I was able to complete the round in less than an hour. In fact, I had to wait 10 minutes for other golfers in front of me (so I could have done it even quicker). The good news was that I was able to par 4 holes (3 shots) and had 6 holes requiring 4 shots. The rest were worse ;). What was amusing was that I was able to throw it across the lake. But on the next hole, my throw went 45 degrees off course into the water. Sigh. It required some wading to retreive it.

Lunch Time Tichuers 02/21/2006

Sigh. Still haven’t won a lunch time Tichu game this year. Perhaps a small part of that is because we don’t play to 1000 points? Still, it was amusing to have a bomb and set Ed’s tichu call..


The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed

GT/T Team #1 GT/T GT/T Team #2 GT/T
Ed & Dan Mark & Mike
 
180
T+   20  
 
235
    65  
  235     265  
 
290
    310  
 
390
    210 T-
 
475
    225  
T- 400    
300
 
  330 T-  
370
 
  530     370  
  730     370  

Game Day 02/20/2006

Game #1

Lexio

Since today was a holiday and the stock markets were closed, Marty had the day off. So he called a game day. And since, over the weekend we had freezing rain and I didn’t want to drive in that environment (400+ wrecks in Austin) so I worked instead. Therefore, I decided to take today off and game.

We started out with Lexio. After the rules explination (with one hiccup that I didn’t catch when Marty explained the rules), we played. Lauren had all the luck in this game. On one hand, she had all of the twos! Another odity that I noticed was that no one was caught with a two in their hand when the round ended. So no one was really rushing to play 2’s.

Game #2

Hacienda

The next game out on the table was Hacienda. And what was amusing was that Ed had stopped by during his lunch hour and was roped into explaining the rules to this game. This game was fustrating in that Lauren asked questions during every play that she made. And at the end of the game, everyone else performed a group-think and advised her on how to score the most points. Sigh!

Susan seems to be a natural at this game and used lakes and haciendas to get her the win. An amusing quote that she made was that she wanted to eel her bull first before she sent it to the market.

Game #3

Ostia

Susan brought out a new game that I had wanted to try before possibly buying it. This game has some interesting mechanisms that turn out to be annoying. The first is that people can make any bid amount for cards in a one around bidding. The person who put the cards up for auction can then take any bid or overbid and keep the cards. So you may bid the highest amount and yet loose the auction because the person gave it to someone else. The second mechanism that I didnt like was the blind allocation of cards. You can group your cards into three areas. One gets you money, the other gets you victory points and the third is for the next round. Everyone reveals their selections at the same time. So you might get hosed if you guess wrong. Not a game that I would buy. Or probably play again either.

Game #4

Get the goods

This is the first time that I played this particular Alan Moon game. Although I have played the mechanics a lot. It feels exactly like a condensed card version of Union Pacific.

Game Day 02/16/2006

Game #1a

Antiquity

Only four tonight as two people cancelled out (because of work even). And I only played one game tonight. But it is a game that I like to play even though I haven;t won yet. But I have an excuse. Two of them are human computers. 😉

Game #1b

This was Doug’s first playing and he did well. By well, I meant that he kept his culture alive. Although he was flirting with death. He was always low on food and we had high famine levels. He was barely able to keep up with the incomming graves. Take a look at his necropolis…

I think that one of my problems is that I play it too safe. I should take some graves if it means that I can get more production going. This game does have a snow-ball effect on production.

Lunch Time Tichuers 02/16/2006

This game had an interesting hand. Adam calls Grand Tichu. Ed has the Mahjong and a long straight (12 card). So he decides to call Tichu. Unfortunately, Mike bombs Ed. At the end of the hand, Ed, Adam and myself all have one card. Fortunately, Mike leads a single card which both Ed and Adam were forced to pass on and I was able to play on. This allowed a net -100 point loss for the opposing team.

There were able to come back from behind with 3 one/twos which was enough to give them the game.


The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed

GT/T Team #1 GT/T GT/T Team #2 GT/T
MarkH & Ed Adam & Mike
T+ 145    
55
 
 
250
  T- -50  
  280    
20
 
  330     70  
 
305
T- GT- -105  
  305     295 GT+
 
370
    230 T-
T+ 500    
300
 
  500     600 T+
  500   T+ 900  
 
765
GT+   935