Monday 30 April 2012

Game playing

Someone asked me after church yesterday whether I was still gaming.  I was non plussed for a moment wondering if he meant gambling!  He grinned realising he'd used the wrong word and said..."Backgammon isn't it?"
It is.
When I had young children one great delight on a rainy weekend was to get the games out and play Monopoly, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuits, etc.  Once they had left home I was stuck.....no one to play with. The dog couldn't  seem to master a board game!
The computer age changed all that. I graduated from solitaire to other more complicated games and Backgammon is one of them. There are plenty of games that are made for one person to play but I do like to play a real human being....so now I play not only Backgammom but Scrabble and even occasionally Cribbage all with real people.
I even have the odd game on line  with my son....whose main game is chess but I am not up to that one ......yet.
The backgammon site I visit is called Fibs, the first internet backgammon site.
In recent months they have succeeded in making it almost problem free.....by waging war on those who break  the rules.
The worst crime on Fibs is to leave a game when you are losing....these people are known as droppers. There is a system of scoring and you lose a point or two if you don't win.
Reputation is everything....and you can see quite clearly that some people are droppers, or cheats and I don't play those....unless I'm feeling reckless! 
I suppose that cheats get everywhere....but there can't be much satisfaction in knowing that you are high up the score ladder by cheating and not by being good at the game.
Scrabble is different......if there is a way of cheating I have yet to find it....I have been playing with some people for years . Its all good natured  and many have become friends on Facebook!
I read somewhere that people who play games live longest!  I am not sure if thats a good thing but it does mean that I am never bored....there is always someone to play with...and making contact with diverse groups of people I would never otherwise meet is a real pleasure.....
Another thing to thank God for in fact.

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