Lexicon of Laughs

Eight people squeezed around Joe's kitchen table for the weekly games fest, having walked through Bristol’s indecisive weather which veered from wet to dry and then tried to make amends with a lovely rainbow or two.

Joe, sporting a sizeable scab running along his head but otherwise looking pretty chipper, was joined by Martin, Adam H, Adam T, Katy, Ian, Steve and myself. Katy brought Isle of Skye, "just in case anyone wants to play it," and she placed it prominently on the table (in case anyone wanted to look at it, I suppose). Such deft advertising worked and Ian and Adam H were keen for a game and Steve joined in too.

While the rest of us discussed things, someone mentioned Tichu to which Adam T responded "Did someone mention Tichu?" He was keen for a game, since he'd hadn't played in years.

Joe got out his card table, apologising for the cat hairs on the green felt tabletop. The room buzzed with dual rules explanations while Steve and Adam were brought up to speed, and we began with newbie Adam T paired with Martin and Joe teamed up with me.

New tactic: photo your hand to make people think it's amazing

Joe and me got off to a commanding lead, thanks to me fulfilling a call of Tichu despite Martin and Adam both having bombs. Also, Adam failed a couple of early Tichu calls as he made the error of ending the round with low, unplayable cards left in his hand.

But things started to turn around. Adam got the hang of things and Martin had a very bomb-heavy game. We were still looking good for the win, especially when Joe went out with an instant Tichu, but the gap kept getting narrower.

In the end, they ran out easy winners. Joe felt liked he'd been played by a hustler, such was the way the game played out. All that was missing was for one of them to suggest, when they were 700 points behind, "Say, why don't we make this interesting?"

Martin & Adam T 1080
Joe & Andrew 720

Happily, Isle of Skye was ending at almost the same time. I didn't really follow the game, apart from hearing Katy insist she was having fun despite being in last. When the final count came, perennially last Katy and always-leading Steve had a surprise or two.

Katy's tidy island

Ian 175
Katy 174
Steve 170
Adam 159

With all eight together we discussed our options. Captain Sonar for eight was instantly dismissed by Martin despite him being in another room. Instead we split again, with Tichu making a second appearance, this time with Ian, Adam T, Joe and Adam H. Apart from Joe’s midgame suggestion “Let’s all call Grand Tichu,” I don’t know how the game went, but it ended:

Joe and Adam T won
Ian and Adam H lost

Meanwhile, Martin, Katy, Steve and I played QE. Steve was aghast that there was now a game based on quantitative easing, but he seemed keen to give it a go. I also had reservations, especially due to its comparisons with Ponzi Scheme, but I thought I should give it a fair crack of the whip.

It was okay. Certainly a lot quicker than Ponzi Scheme. Steve (China) and Katy (USA) were the early big buyers and they hoovered up tiles. But Steve gave the impression of having spent more than Katy. In fact, in the last round he put out the final tile for tender at 50,000 only to find that he ended up having to buy it himself. He didn’t realise that was a possibility, but when we added up his money spent, he’d already gone far past the rest of us before that had happened, so it made no difference. Martin (EU) and I (Japan) made some last minute bids that, as it turned out, pushed us past Katy’s spending level, giving her a clear win. “Katy crushed it,” Martin said and Katy insisted I wrote it down.

Katy 41
Martin 30
Andrew 18
Steve OUT! (By miles, but he had 42)

Then we had a quick game of Heul Doch Mau Mau which is something to do with onions. You have to build up a pile of onion cards in front of you but they have to match either the suit or value of the one before and it mustn’t match the suit or colour of either of your neighbours. If it does, then your card must go on that pile, which means it counts towards their score.

But, you can “reset” your pile by playing a card face down – a weeping onion. At the end of the round, count up those onions. That value (say, six) means that any cards of that same value don’t count to your score. As it happens, Steve didn’t get hit by that punishment (nor did I, fat load of use it did me) while Martin lost 24 points.

Steve 91
Katy 77
Martin 74
Andrew 63

It was an odd game. Can’t shake the feeling there’s not enough control involved. Still, I pretty sure I laughed at some point.

At this point Adam T and Ian left, although Ian paused – tempted by the sight of a new word game: Stinker. This game involves each player having a set number of tiles with letters on (23 tiles each, which we thought was impossible with six players, but we ended up with three to spare) and a card giving you a topic about which you have to write an answer. Spelling mistakes are prefectly fine (see what I did there?) and each player has two blank tiles to get them out of a tight spot if they need it. There is a scoring system, but it seemed fairly redundant.

The game was a huge success, reducing most of us to puddles of tears of laughter. “How to avoid boredom,” asked the card. “Wank,” wrote Joe succinctly. My answers were too dull, reaching a peak with the prompt “Where would you go in the past” getting this answer from me:

But others did great work. “Another use for a light saber” was either “Massive Dildo” (Steve) or “Frighten Horses” (Joe). Martin tried to get the word “stinker” into as many responses as he could (i.e., “The perfect crime” = “Cheat at Stinker”).

I wish I’d made notes, but I was laughing too much. Only Adam didn’t seem hugely entertained, but you can’t please everyone can you?

Steve won
So did everyone else
Adam came last (sorry, Adam)

And so, wiping the tears from our eyes, we were done for the night. Two games of Tichu and a blistering debut from a new word game. Thanks for hosting, Joe.