Goodbye / Old Puzzler Answer

Goodbye

Well, this is it. The last post for me. I’ve had fun posting on Gone Gaming for however long I’ve been at it. Thanks, Coldfoot, for the initial invitation and everyone else for being so welcoming and helpful.

After managing World Games of Montana for a year (now under the management of Jonathan Crummett; also known as Ksensei on BGG) and writing game reviews for the local paper the Missoulian for two years, I can’t help but see a bright future for board gaming. Dozens of people came into the game store who had never been in before, and a good percentage found themselves liking what they found. Of course, our best sellers never really strayed too far from anywhere else (Settlers, Ticket to Ride, Blokus), though I did my best to push Aquarius with fairly nice results. The board gaming hobby is getting a greater voice as more and more people find out about easy-to-play and fun new games.

As a reader of Gone Gaming, I have been so impressed with the other contributors and their public demonstrations of board games. This isn’t a hobby like stamp collecting or coin collecting. In our hobby, games are meant to be shared and played. The difference is fundamental. Our hobby is contagious in this regard, and it seems to me only a matter of time before our hobby becomes more mainstream. I really appreciate hearing about successful Game Days, conventions, and family game parties. We need more of them in more places, in my opinion. This pastime goes back thousands of years, and I see no reason why the masses would hesitate to adopt it in its current manifestation if they were familiar with its charms.

As Annie and I prepare for our West Africa trip, I want everyone to know that I intend to play games, games, games with everyone I meet. I want to become more proficient at 10x10 Canadian Checkers (or International Checkers) because that’s what they play a ton of in Guinea and any other games we encounter. And of course, we’re taking a handful of Euros and classic games, from Jambo (of course!) to Cathedral, as well as games like cribbage and chess. And don’t forget to look for a feature in Knucklebones about West African games about 10 months in the future!

So thanks again for allowing me to participate in this hobby from the inside out. Good luck to everyone, and may the dice and cards fall in your favor.

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Old Puzzler Q & A

Q: I took a common four-word phrase which is 25 letters long and deleted 10 letters from it. Without rearranging or reorganizing the letters, I simply changed the word breaks to form the new phrase: NED ATE STALE RICE. What was the original four-word phrase?

A: It was a government organization: UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE.

Penultimate Farewell / Old Puzzler / New (and Last) Biweekly Puzzler

My time with Gone Gaming is coming to an end, though I will continue to be a part of the on-line gaming community. This is my penultimate post, and as such, I will keep things on the short end so that this whole thing will be little more than a blip.

My partner Annie and I are moving to Guinea, West Africa, which is where we met in the Peace Corps over seven years ago (started dating six years ago). We have had little contact with our friends and family in Guinea during our time away, and we're excited (and have been for quite some time) to return.

But we have to move from our place in Missoula first.

We have been scrambling to sell things and get the house ready for the next tenant. I can't really remember cleaning the house this well, even for us. We've been really getting rid of things, clothes from high school, useless things we've lugged around. It's been nice.

But I had a little slip-up that I think many of the users here will appreciate.

I logged a decent table on Craigslist. I wrote the description fast and without really pausing to digest what I was writing. When I went back to proof what I had written, I found a glaring difference between what I wanted to write and what I actually wrote. I wrote.

"Moving Sale! Nice round table with leaf for $20! Table accommodates four players, six with leaf. Contact us now!"

Ah, this life with games. Is there any other hobby like it? I think not.

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Old Puzzler Q & A

Q: Name a word which uses the letters E, L, S, V. One letter appears four times, one three, one two, and one once. What is it?

A: (given first by Dave Peters) SLEEVELESS

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New (and Last) Fortnightly Puzzler

There are four words that are commonly seen together that I had to see a few times while we've been moving. If you delete various letters and put the remaining letters together WITHOUT REORDERING THEM, you get the following phrase:

NED ATE STALE RICE.

The word breaks are different, and the total letter count of the original is 25. What are the four words?

*As always, I enjoy hearing the answers via email. If you solve it, please refrain from posting directly on the site. If you feel the urge, write smattathias@gmail.com with the answers. I'll post the name of the first person to respond. Thanks!

The News in Thongs / Old Puzzler Answer / New Fortnightly Puzzler

A Cribbage Tale

The highest ranked cribbage player in the states is DeLynn Colvert. He's won the Cribbage Nationals four times, as well as countless other tournaments. Because of the volatility of the game, the American Cribbage Congress awards points for tournament victories, and these points make up the ranking system (that is to say, you could win Nationals but not be the highest ranked player). Last time I checked, DeLynn's closest competitor was several thousand points behind him.

DeLynn Colvert is a full-time cribbage player. He travels over 40,000 miles a year to various tournaments. He lives and breathes cribbage, and when you see him, you start to understand. He is usually sporting an ACC cap and is often wearing a cribbage sweatshirt.

DeLynn also lives in Missoula, Montana, and I've been itching to play him for months. World Games of Montana carries his book "Play Winning Cribbage" with his now famous Theory of 26. I've only glanced at the book, so I can't go into much detail. The Theory of 26 is a law of averages for cribbage, and as such, it is a framework for how to play if you start the game as dealer or if you start as non-dealer.

Cribbage is a game I only picked up last year. I've read one book on it, didn't get perfect scores on any of the tests, and haven't read another book since. I would call myself a beginner, and a solid one at that, but nothing more. When DeLynn came in the store earlier this week, I challenged him to a game. He accepted.

At his own admittance, DeLynn believes that every beginner who doesn't make any substantial errors should win about four games out of ten against anyone. Basically, anyone should win four games out of ten against anyone. It's those two leftover games that are closely fought over, as far as averages go.

We cut to go first, and DeLynn got the lower card. "That just gave me a 4% edge," he said. But I got a nice cut card in the first round (a 5) to match my double run of face cards, so I started off just behind DeLynn. He led the way around the board for more than 60 points of the game, but then had a terrible streak of no-pointers.

What I found incredible was his pegging during these awful hands. DeLynn was still getting around six to eight points and jumping ahead of me each time. In my opinion, pegging is the trickiest part of the game and at the heart of a lot of wins. Still, my better hands finally took a toll. I took the lead from around 90 points, with about ten to fifteen points between us.

As befitting this exciting occasion, I landed on 120 points as non-dealer and ended my turn. DeLynn caught up to about 110. In this situation, the game is usually won by a single pegged point. I felt pretty confident. My hand was an odd one; I kept two cards I thought were decent pegging cards and the other two were ten-counts. DeLynn, I soon found out, kept small numbered cards.

DeLynn laid a 4 down; I couldn't make points. I made a terrible play and played a 3; he paired it for two. Still, I couldn't make any points, so I played a 10 bringing the total up to 20. At this point, DeLynn deliberated. He quickly played an ace, bringing it up to 21. I looked at my hand and dropped the second face card, making 31 and my last point needed. Yes!

So perhaps the game was simply one of the four granted all beginners. Who knows? But after the game, DeLynn was the picture of perfect sportsmanship. He was so nice after the game you would have sworn he had just won. The board we played on was one he won in 2005, a $200 board that he had never played on before. He joked that he used up all his luck winning that cribbage board!

I really appreciated his time and courtesy. In those final moments, I feel I saw part of what it means to be a champion.

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Old Puzzler Q & A

Q: This is a personal story about a magician which will lead into the puzzler.

A friend once took me to see his uncle. His uncle loved magic tricks and jumped at the opportunity to show them off, especially to new people.

When I met him, it seemed we were opposites of sorts. I was a kid in high school; he was a husband and father of two. I wore a baseball cap to block the Texas sun; he wore nothing. I had baggy jeans; he wore shorts and a T-shirt. Somehow, he knew I was the perfect mark.

He had me sit down in a chair on the living room carpet. He then took a roll of paper towels and ripped off one sheet. He showed me both sides of his arms to demonstrate that he wasn't using any machine or apparatus.

He then started swinging his arms in front of me like a person mimicking a giant alligator. One arm would go high, and the other would go low. As he made this movement, he crumpled the paper towel and switched hands. Up and down the paper towel would travel, and smaller and smaller it became as he crumpled it. Finally, poof! It disappeared.

"Do you know where it went?" he asked. I shook my head. "Ok," he said, "I'll do it again." He repeated the trick. Again, the paper towel disappeared. Again, I didn't know what happened.

"Ok," he said, "This time, I'll make it easy on you." He then took the entire paper towel roll, a pretty hefty full roll, and did the same thing. Up and down it went in his alligator jaw pattern. Finally, and I kid you not, it disappeared right before my very eyes.

Can you guess how he was doing it?

A: Two people guessed and got it right, one with part of the details of the trick. My friend's uncle simply threw the paper towels, wadded up, over my head and behind me. While this seems pretty obvious, there are a few things to consider: 1) my cap cut off my upper peripheral vision, 2) we were on carpet so the already quiet paper towels were made even more quiet when they landed (even the roll didn't seem to make a sound), 3) common courtesy is to make eye contact, so I didn't consider looking behind me.

Magic tricks, both simple and complex, are fascinating when executed well. A good showman with a simple trick is likely to be talked about for a long time.

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New Fortnightly Puzzler

Here's a trivia question from long ago:

& (the 'and' sign) : ampersand :: # (the 'pound' sign) : _________.*

* Thanks for all puzzle solving attempts! Please do not post answers on the blog, however. If you feel the need, you can email me at smattathias@gmail.com. Thanks!