Games Night – 25 July 2017
Tonight we had our regular/annual relaxed meeting followed by a games night. We intended to have both draughts and dominoes competitions, but in the event, the draw for the draughts competition gave rise to a much more demanding and thought-provoking evening.
Many of the assembled Brothers claimed they had not played draughts for years and that became progressively more evident as the attempts at strategic play became worse and worse. There were plenty of instances of stalemates with one person having to concede through suicidal gameplay in order to allow the event to finish at a reasonable hour.
Rob shows that it is all down to left and right brain power!! But Eddie claims it is just down to keeping a cool head throughout…
The draw gave Karol a free entry into the 2nd round (no favouritism because he is Provincial President) and everyone else played at least one game, with Peter and Simon eventually getting through to the final. This turned out to be such a riveting game that only Karol (who had to wait because he looks after the draughts and dominoes sets), Rob (because he was getting a lift from Peter), Julie (obviously because Peter was driving), Eddie and Maurice (because Simon was driving) were left at the end of the night. The final finished around 10.25pm with Peter having lost his way tactically and Simon having gained some good tips from Karol (in their 2nd round match) about recovering from a losing position, leaving Simon as the eventual winner.
Congratulations to him – no prize, but the pleasure of seeing a provocative picture on this blog should be prize enough; you can see the cogs working furiously in both men’s heads as they debate with themselves how to outgun their opponent!
Simon (left) beats Peter after a battle of wits!!
Highlights of the evening will NOT be available on Sky Sports or BT Sports channels as the games were far too slow. Nor is the BBC interested in wasting some of the licence fee on subsidising the beer (though I am reliably informed that there was a “cider with fruits” available for the princely sum of £1.50 a pint – beats the price of beers by a long way). However, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) is interested in adding the event to its popular and long-standing “slow TV” coverage; spies for NRK producers were overheard saying that “it makes for much better viewing than all those reindeer, who don’t know one side of a draughts board from the other, even if they only see the world in black and white”.
Good morning Catenians, this email arrived the morning AFTER the event.
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