The Games People Play

 

People, the world over, love to play games … usually competitively. Games that are popular in one country are sometimes unknown in another. Folks in Fiji rarely play hockey. Folks in the US rarely participate in banana relays. Traveling from country to country as we do, we get a chance to witness games that are different and many that are the same.

Football is an interesting sport. What we call football in America is not the same as Australian football. And actually, to most of the world, football is soccer and not at all like football as we know it in the USA, or Australian football for that matter. Then there's rugby, of course, which isn't like either American or Australian football. Soccer is certainly played in the US, but it's nowhere near as popular here as it is in the rest of the world.

Baseball is played in other countries, but its roots are here in America. Whitman said it's “America's game” and it's hard to find someone who doesn't have a favorite team. Oh, they play it in Asia and Europe, but it's nothing like the Americas (both of them). Little League is big here and if you grew up in the States you probably played sandlot baseball when you were a kid. On the other hand, we have no explanation for cricket. The bat is odd, the games last a long time and we don't understand the rules.

Basketball, both men's and women's, is played in several places throughout the world although the rules seem to differ depending upon the country. One fond memory was a group of young Embera men in the Darien Jungle of Panama playing basketball in loincloths in the middle of their village. It's an image that stays with you.

We've watched polo, a rich man's sport, but it's definitely not a team sport that most folks will ever expect to play.

Chess, checkers, backgammon and dominoes seem to be popular worldwide games. Cruisers in Mexico and the Carib were crazy for Mexican train dominoes, but we never caught the fever. We especially love those huge chess sets in downtown city parks where people have to move human size chess pieces from square to square.

In the Amazon, we played Sapo. Sapo in Spanish translates to frog and the object of the game was to throw a disc from a measured distance into a golden frog's mouth or into specifically marked holes with numerical values assigned to them. The person with the highest point score wins. There's some skill involved, but the novelty wore off rather quickly.

In French Polynesia, we participated in traditional Polynesian games which included stone lifting, banana relays, coconut husking and outrigger races. Needless to say, though the locals provided instruction and encouragement, we were a sad-looking bunch. It was fun nonetheless.

Re-enactments are popular in many countries. Here in the US, we attended several Civil War re-enactments. Depending whether we were north or south of the Mason-Dixon Line determined who won the particular battle. In Vanuatu, we witnessed a different kind of re-enactment where a century ago locals had attacked arriving missionaries … and subsequently eaten them. The re-enactment stopped just before the “having missionaries for dinner” part, but the attack was definitely authentic looking.

On board, we play lots of card games. Cribbage and gin rummy are two of our favorites. We play backgammon on occasion and Speed Scrabble whenever I can talk David into it. As uncompetitive as we are between us, we still keep score and have been for years. At last count, David was ahead 5,345 to my paltry 5210.

We regularly watch young folks in their tiny Optimist sailboats racing through anchorages and adeptly maneuvering around the big boats and the race markers. Though we always claim we are not interested in racing, it is said that whenever two sailboats are heading the same direction, it's a race. Quite honestly, we truly are not racers and we don't care … but we do like to arrive first.

Speeding Up Scrabble

I'm hooked on Words with Friends (WWF). Sometimes, I have so many games going with Lin at one time, we call it WWS (Words with Sisters). It still amazes me to be able to play a game with my sister in Boston and have responses in seconds on the other side of the world, including some chat along the way. When we're together however, it's Speed Scrabble that keeps us occupied day and night.

January 19, 1938 is considered by some to be Scrabble's birthday. Others say that January 19, 1955 was the debut of Scrabble internationally. It had been sold in the USA under various names since it was invented by a crossword enthusiast, Alfred Butts, but it took 17 years for it to make it across the Atlantic and the Pacific to the UK and Australia. It doesn't matter. I just like the game.

I especially like Speed Scrabble on the boat because it doesn't require a board, only the tiles which I keep in a little sack close by in the hammock. The original Scrabble game didn't have a board, just letter tiles, so this isn't that much of a stretch. I'm always hopeful that I'll get David to play and once in awhile he does. It takes serious bribes for that to happen. ;-) He thinks it's too stressful.

I looked on-line for the rules to Speed Scrabble, but none of them seem to be exactly the same way we play it. Variations on a theme suit us. You can play with 2-4 players, but we find 2-3 best. Adapt rules to your own playing style. Here are, however, the real rules (according to the Lemay Girls anyway).

Object of the game: To use all your drawn tiles in acceptable words (Scrabble rules and Dictionary applies) before your opponent(s) does.

1. Place all (100) Scrabble tiles letter-side down on a table.
2. Each player should choose 7 tiles which are kept in front of them, letter side down. Leave yourself lots of room to expand because each player constructs his/her own puzzle. You work only on your own puzzle and try to ignore what everyone else is doing.
3. When everyone's ready, say “GO” and the stress begins. Each person turns over their letters and begins to form words. The object is to use all of your tiles forming one or multiple words. You can rearrange your letters any way you wish throughout the game, changing words, changing the whole puzzle if you want (and have time), but you cannot exchange letters and you cannot trade letters with other players.
4. When one player has used up all of their seven letters, he/she shouts “GO” and every player must take another tile whether they've used all their letters or not.
5. As soon as one player uses all his letters again, he/she shouts “GO” and every player again takes another tile. This continues until all the tiles are gone or until there are not enough tiles for all players to take one. It gets frantic as people start saying GO, GO, GO and you're frustrated because you have no vowels or no consonants or can't make any words.
6. If no one can make a move, they agree to take a tile.
7. The game ends when one player uses all his/her letters and there are no more to draw and that player shouts “DONE”.
8. We allow a Scrabble dictionary to be on the table, but you can only use it during normal play action. The game does not stop when you're consulting the dictionary. The Scrabble dictionary is the final judge of a word. If it ain't there, it's not a word. Pays to have a current one on hand.(Hint: if your opponent is stuck, it's a good time to be able to consult the Scrabble dictionary)
9. Prior to counting up letter points, each player must verify with the others that his/her words are legitimate. This is the time when other players can challenge words or letter placements.

• If a player is found to be in default, he must remove all the tiles of the non-word(s) which are in question. These will be counted against him/her.
• If the person who is the “winner” of the round has a misspelled or played an unacceptable word or made an incorrect tile placement, that person accepts the unused tiles from the other players which will be counted against him/her. Pays to be sure you've got your tiles in order before shouting “DONE”.

SCORING:

• We award 10 points to the person who goes out using all his/her tiles as long as there are no problems with his/her puzzle. If there are problems, no winner award is granted.
• We also award 5 points for the longest word used, determined by how many letters are in the word. If there is a tie in word length, the player with the most letter points then wins.
• Sometimes we make the game interesting by adding an additional “theme” element agreed to by the players, such an animal, food, bird, etc. We award an additional 5 points to a player for each “theme” word created in a puzzle during the round.
• We keep things easy. Counting the letters is done as a straight count. No double counting of letters. If a “Z” is used twice, it still only counts once as a total of 10 points. If you have unused letters, you must subtract their point value from your total score.
• The total value of all the letters combined is 187. All totals including unused tiles subtracted should add up to this amount.
• We play to 500, but this is totally arbitrary.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Days and Ways to Celebrate

A daily list of mostly obscure holidays and fun ways to celebrate them.

Scrabble's Anniversary (1948)

National Popcorn Day

Eat popcorn while you play Speed Scrabble...impossible!