Games People Play

I have always loved games. Card games, certainly, but also board games and puzzles and quizzes etc. It would be an exaggeration to say I love sport, but I do enjoy watching and following sports for some of the same reasons I like playing games.

Clearly, poker and bridge are the main games holding my attention recently. However, when I was at school, I used to play scrabble, backgammon, chess etc.

I enjoyed them all although I wasn't all that good at them, I suppose. Good enough to beat most people I played against, certainly, but you come to realise that this is a long way from actually being good.

In chess, where I was definitely only average+, it is relatively easy to appreciate that the good players are far better. But in a game like scrabble, without strong competition, it is easy not to realise just how good the good players can be.

In fact, it was only recently when I read a Times scrabble column that I began to see that there are levels and levels beyond just knowing a lot of words and being quick to spot where to play them.

The situation posed did not ask which was the best score we could make, but invited us to consider - based on our inference on which letters our opponent probably held - where to play defensively to prevent him from making a powerful move on later turns.

It never occurred to me to be counting the letters, let alone for tactical defense ! When I was playing at school I am not sure I even knew about the 50-point bonus for using all 7 letters, which seems to be a vital weapon in a competitive match.

I haven't played scrabble for ages. I am only thinking about it now because someone on facebook challenged me. In that game, I have already played "LANDINGS" for the 7 letter bonus and also some very odd 2 letter words including "CH".

The online game handily has a listing of all the 2 letter words. I always knew that a full knowledge of these was important, but I had never actually got around to learning them.

In poker there is no shortage of strong competition to spur one on. But whereas in scrabble (like poker, a skillful game, with a luck element) you're going to get the message very quickly, in poker there is so much "noise" that any skill deficit is often disguised.

But there should be no doubt that proper and effective study of the game is going to make a big difference. I still haven't done enough of that, I know.

Karen, Harry and I went to a friend's house on New Year's Eve (12 of us altogether aged 12 - 50ish). It was a very successful evening, and memorable for the games Sarah and Derek came up with.

I thought they were very suitable. They weren't lewd, didn't involve drinking, were genuinely open to all ages and non-threatening (no forfeits) and didn't require any specialist knowledge.

There was Pictureka! (an actual board game), Chase the Ace (a well-known and very easy card game, that works with any number of players), Spoons (not sure I have ever played that before, but it was fun !).

Then there was the "tube game". You must pick up a cardboard tube with your mouth (using no hands, your knees cannot touch the ground, neither you nor the tube can fall over during your go). The tube is cut after each turn, so it gets shorter and shorter (harder and harder to pick up). Realistically the game can only be won by the youngsters, although anyone can manage it in the early stages.

Cameron won, but not before Harry put up a really spirited 2nd-place effort. He accidentally invented a new technique (I liken it to the innovation that was the Fosbury Flop). He was able to just reach the tube, then grab it with his mouth and perform a forward roll to land safely with the tube in mouth. This was judged valid.

Then there was the "chocolate game" - involving dice, hats, scarf and gloves, chocolate and mayhem !

One excellent feature of all the games - an ingredient of the best "fun" games - is that the rules were somewhat fluid. It's important that there are enough agreed rules to allow the games to get underway, but it's even better if the rules are then argued about and developed in a friendly way as the game proceeds.

In "spoons" there were debates over "feinting", and the speed of the pass, and the positioning of the spoons relative to the players and so on. In "chocolate", the requirement to throw a double six was quickly re-negotiated. In "tube", Harry's flop-tactic was allowed, and then Cameron won back the final advantage by successfully lobbying to remove the tray on which the tube had stood, allowing him to place his feet nearer the target.

These adaptations added greatly to the success of all the games.

Today, Harry is back on the XBOX360. I maintain that those are not real games. It may be another 364 days until we can play some proper games again !