Louder than Hugo

It’s been over six years since a board game was so raucous that it couldn’t be played in an ordinary house, but this week we found another game to file alongside Midnight Party/Hugo under the ban hammer.

 

I arrived at 8 and watched as Joe, Sam, Martin and Gareth played Letter Tricks. Each player plays a card to make a four letter word. There was a lot of consulting of the Scrabble dictionary in the hope that an improbable word would be okay, and it usually was. “Doup is a word!” Sam exclaimed. And so was Brin and Grav. “If you can have anti-grav, you can have grav,” remarked Gareth. Except, oddly, for Shiz which we all expected would be confirmed as genuine but the dictionary didn’t list it. We decided to accept it, anyway. Fo' shiz.

Then, after discovering that a brin is a spoke of a fan, we all played Hit. We pushed our luck and watched as a stack of fives was swapped from player to player. Sam had appalling luck, constantly busting and banking only one point and then at the very end he decided to just draw all the cards until the end of the deck. His last card was a five and they changed hands for one more time.

Martin 95

Joe 88

Sam 65

Andrew 59

Gareth 58

 

Then Katy arrived and we brought out a new game: Ready Set Bet. A horse betting game with a huge board for placing bets and a tiny board for the race itself. 

Katy was volunteered (or volunteered herself, I don’t recall) to be the race master, which meant she had to roll dice, move horses and commentate all at once. Her bets were placed at the start of the race while the rest of us could bet on horses during the race. Despite her lack of information, she did extremely well.

Martin managed to win all of his bets in round one and he did well on round two too. I put two bets on horse nine to win and it did. That was my only flash of luck as, for the rest pf the time, I spread my bets in such a way that they couldn’t possibly all win.

It was an event. We cried and yelled for our bets to come in like gambling addicts waiting to see if lady luck will finally look our way. It was almost too exciting. If any of us end up in debt to the bookies, we’ll know where it started. As the fourth and final race ended, Joe’s wife Charlotte came down the stairs, looking slightly bemused. We did apologize and I assume Joe had to apologize to his neighbours later. It was clear that this game was too loud for any domestic venue. Expect to see it at Novocon, though.

 

Martin 204

Katy 154

Gareth 93

Joe 81

Sam 71

Andrew 67

Then we split into two groups. Gareth was introduced to Thurn and Taxis by Joe and Sam and I was introduced to San Francisco by Katy and Martin.

After all the excitement of Ready Steady Bet, it was a blessed relief to play something more relaxing. I can’t honestly say I had any real plan. Getting in Katy’s way seemed to be mostof it though. Martin strode to an almost complete whitewash as he picked up half a dozen bonuses for completing things.

Martin 16

Andrew 7.5

Katy 7

In Thurn and Taxis (I admit I was too tired to pay much attention to it) ended

Joe 31

Gareth 16

Sam 13

By now it was after half past ten and so I dashed off while the remaining quintet finished on So Clover. Thanks all, see you again soon.