 What games do you play
aboard?
Are you 'Scrabble' fiends? We've been using the same Travel Scrabble set since the early 1960's but it does look very much the worse for
wear! Still,
it's the De Luxe set which just goes to show that, if you're going to
buy at all, you may as well buy the best.
How we've managed to keep all,
but two, of the pieces for nearly four decades, heaven only knows! True, the little
'legs' designed to stick into the perforated board are
missing from a great many of the letters , and the holes in the board
are, for the most part, widened beyond a useful size, but you can still
play. The cardboard D and Y substitutes give themselves away a bit, but
it doesn't matter.
Last year, on a visit to the USA, it seemed that it might be about time to
replace the set, being in a place saturated with games shops but, to my surprise the pieces in the modern version
appear to be made of raw wood. It seemed unlikely they would last
long in the wet and salty atmosphere aboard an ocean-going boat, so
we'll soldier on with our old pal.
Is anybody else still using a game which wasn't designed to last but has become
an old friend? Or maybe you enjoy using a wonderful antique game?
Do you take your Bridge too far or sit around wearing a Poker
face?
Is it all Go with you or do you prefer to take it easy with Mah Jong?!
Is your game Monopoly?, Risk? Cluedo? Ludo?
We'd love to hear all about it!
We like a round of Rummy, but with a twist. If you want to pick up the
top card on the discard pile, you've got to pick up all the cards on the
discard pile! That makes for some fun moments, when you've just picked
up a load of picture cards that don't constitute anything you could put
down and your opponent 'goes out', leaving you with a huge negative
score! We play up to 500 points which, usually, takes about five or six
rounds to reach, each round lasting about fifteen to twenty minutes. We
play the basic Rummy: three or four of a kind can be laid down in front
of you, or a run of three, or more, in the same suit, the Aces being
high or low, as desired. You may only lay cards down when it is your
turn.
You must pick up a card from the pack (or the contents of the
discard pile) before laying anything down and then discard one card (no
matter how many you have just picked up!) at the end of your turn. Once you have some cards laid down in front of
you, you may also
lay cards down (again in front of you, since they will count towards
your score) which belong at either end of your opponents' laid-down runs
or with his/her three of a kind. When one of you has 'gone out', i.e.
managed to use up all the cards in hand, leaving one to throw away, the
round is over.
The values of the cards you have put down in front of you
count in your favour and the values of the cards you have in your hand
count against you. An Ace is worth 15 points, picture cards (J, Q &
K) are worth 10 points each, as are the 10's. All other cards are
worth 5 points each. First person to score 500 points is the winner. One
develops all kinds of strategies, like keeping runs in the hand, instead
of putting them down in front of one, to trick the opponent into
thinking that it's safe to pick up a fat discard pile because, with that
many cards in your hand, you surely pose no threat...
Are you a Chess master or is Draughts taxing enough? We both play chess, but
neither of us is particularly good at it. We don't tend to play against
each other, having only a tiny set on board which is difficult to use
and having never got around to acquiring a bigger one. There are always
so many other things which seem more urgently necessary when any
'surplus' cash (is that supposed to be funny?) happens along. Still,
we often play fellow cruisers we meet ashore who have big enough chess
sets to make playing possible.
We both played a lot of games against a
Canadian friend, Del on 'Peace Of Mind' and against Wolfgang, a German
friend with a bright yellow catamaran called 'Double Trouble' when we
were all sitting out the hurricane season in Trinidad, West Indies, last
year. I don't remember winning any, or even coming particularly close
but Robbie had some successes.
We both enjoy playing 'Patience' or 'Solitaire' (card games for
one person, for those who have never discovered them), Robbie favouring
a traditional game and myself being keen on a game called 'Sixes' and a
wicked one, the name of which escapes me, which I was taught by a
Californian crew who had driven himself crazy with it. Well, that was
his excuse, anyway!
Then, of course, there's the whole gamut of computer games, but
we'll leave that for another time...
How about you? Do you enjoy playing Solitaire or Patience? Do you play the
computer solitaire games?
Do you get together with other cruisers to play?
We'd love to hear all about the games you like to while away your idle hours
with.
Perhaps you could teach us some games to add a bit of variety to our
free time? Drop us a line...
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