Board Games & More

"Sorry!" she said with a big smile on her face as she landed on her opponent's piece. "Haha! Go back to the start!" Yes, that was me every time I landed on Ray's piece.

Frustration pop-o-matic is an old game known as Trouble in the US. Other versions are known as Sorry! and Ludo. I must have played Sorry! as a young child as I noticed last week that I always said, "Sorry!" with a big smile on my face when I landed on Ray's piece.

Players have to roll a 6 to be able to move each piece out of "home".

The winner is the player whose pieces are all placed in his or her "finish" line.

Try to land on your opponent's piece so it has to go back to the start.

vocabulary: die = the singular form of "dice" (We normally say "dice" if there is only one "die".)

clockwise = moving in the same direction as the hands on a clock

Players move their pieces clockwise around the board.

anticlockwise / counterclockwise = moving in the opposite direction to the hands of a clock

opponent = someone who competes against another person or other people in a game / rival

Our next game is one that is loved by some and hated by others. How do you feel about Monopoly?

It caused some slight disagreements and comments such as, "You're being very rude!" and "Those aren't the rules!". Our game lasted one week, and despite the small disputes, we had some laughs along the way.

Vocabulary:

property / properties = houses and hotels

fake money = pretend money / play money

You owe me $20. = Give me $20.

to win - win - won (Ray won.)

to lose - lose - lost. (I lost.)

to land on a space = to finish your turn on the space. Don't land on Go to Jail.

If you land on the Water Board or Electricity Board, you owe me 10 times the number on the dice. (If you roll a ten, you owe me $100.)

It's a New Year's resolution: to play a different board game, card game or other game each week or two.

So, the first game of the year was Yahtzee, a dice game that takes about 10 to 30 minutes per game depending on how many players there are. It's fun and some of the scoring resembles the card game Poker. Here's my last scorecard:

As you can see, we like to draw funny pictures or record the events going on at the time of play. I save all scorecards so here are some dating back to 2013 and some are special such as my mum's (Midge's) scorecard. We were obviously spending some of the summer holidays at their home in Hilton Head in July 2013. It's funny that just the other day I was trying to remember when we bought our dishwasher, and hey presto, here it is on one of my scorecards - the 10th of August, 2020. Why was Ray so happy on the 30th of August? And, he would also like you to know that he scored "a world record" of 514 points in the game we recently played.

Vocabulary:

Roll the dice. (In the UK, we also say "Rick".) It's your turn to rick.

Whose turn is it?

It's your (my, John's...) turn.