Well, we’ve been working on the single leg sit to stand exercise. After I did a little more reading about it, I think it’s really an exercise for runners. We don’t run, but this seems more like a game when you do it together.
It’s a lot easier to do if you find a seat level higher than a regular chair. We found out that our hotel bed is high enough for us to come closer to doing this with one leg raised off the floor.
Our form? It needs a little work.
The Iowa State Fair will again have the Cribbage Tournament this year! It’s on August 18 (the last day of the fair) from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m at the Oman Family Youth Inn. Registration begins at 10:00 a.m.
We’ve been in the hotel a couple of weeks now. We’ll probably be here 2 months until our house is built. Making it livable is about keeping it simple.
While we were busy packing and moving out of our old house, we got away from regular habits that helped keep us happier and at least somewhat saner.
We’re working to get back to that.
Here’s a great video by Zulwarn: 15 tips to help you be a better Cribbage player. I try to remember most of them.
I almost forgot to announce the annual KickBall Challenge, which is tonight! This used to be called Matball, but is now called Kickball.
It starts with pizza at 6 pm and then the barfing starts at 7 pm. Just kidding! Usually this event is marked by extreme heat and humidity, but I gather it may be almost balmy by comparison tonight-around 78 degrees.
What’s the difference between matball and kickball? I think it’s the use of large mats for bases and that is usually played indoors. The size of the bases during the first match was like the one in the photo below. It rained briefly, but then it cleared off so the humidity only felt like it was raining.
I never actually played in a game of matball/kickball. In fact, I took it easy because the temperature was usually in the mid-90s at least.
The faculty team losers in the first matball/kickball match were accused of suspending the resident team trophy in Jello. I refuse to answer any questions about the issue on the grounds it may incriminate me.
Other special rules apply as usual, at least I assume:
For every point the residents score, faculty automatically score 5.
Faculty may tackle the base runner at any time.
If it rains, faculty win by 10 points.
The games are fun to watch. Residents jumping over faculty; Faculty collapsing from pizza overload or heat stroke.
Just win, baby.
I’m learning how to use the video editor ClipChamp, the free version on the new laptop. So, I muddled through a screen recording of playing what’s called the Daily Cribbage Scrimmage on Cribbage Pro, a feature-rich computer Cribbage game on which you can different skill levels of computer players from easy to impossible as well as online with other live players.
I’m used to using an old version of PowerDirector for my video editing. I would have to expend a fair amount of energy and a little more money to install it on the laptop. I can deal with the webcam on the laptop, but using ClipChamp takes some getting used to.
I found this cribbage YouTube site that does a really nice job of teaching you how to play Cribbage. Here’s a video about whether Cribbage is mainly a game of luck or skill. It turns out it’s a mix of both.
I play computer Cribbage games with high level computer opponents who-let’s face it, don’t make mistakes. You have to get used to losing pretty often, but there is a certain amount of skill which can help you win-sometimes.
Today, I’m going on a tangent about big, mostly antique cribbage boards which were specially made for making the scoring more complex. The main perpetrator (I mean manufacturer), was Drueke (variously pronounced as Drooky, Drew, Drooka).
The Drueke name turns up on most of the big two, three and four track vintage cribbage boards you find for sale on eBay. There are a few other makers, but Drueke is the one you commonly see. I don’t know anything about Drueke except it was a well-known maker of board games including chess and cribbage sets. The company was based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
If you know how to play the basic version of cribbage, you probably think it’s complicated enough as is. But Drueke made boards that allowed you to score many aspects of the game right on the playing surface.
There are other 4 track cribbage boards that aren’t designed to allow players to go crazy with scoring everything you do in a cribbage game. But typically, you’ll see a lot of what Drueke called the “Once-A-Round Scoremaster” boards. I got curious about the rules and found a couple of web pages on which I found out more about them. The rules are a little hard to find and a little vague when you do find them.
I couldn’t find out anything about them even on the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) website—and it’s the main authority about cribbage rules.
Reddit has a page titled Cribbage-Four Track Board (Example Rules). Click the “read more” below the image. It also shows a nice photo of a typical board. It’s tough to follow.
Then I found a Board Game Geek (BGG) page on which a guy named Jeff Bridghman outlined a clearer explanation of how to play on such a board. It’s actually better than the rules included with the Drueke game. By the way, if you have trouble with the web page, just reload it by typing “4 track boards and all the extra mumbo jumbo?” and hit the search button again.
What puzzled me were his comments about the High Hand score. He said his board had something I’ve not seen on pictures of the boards on eBay. The High Hand score goes from 1-10 on every one of those I saw. On the other hand, his board shows actual scores (14 through 29). I think it must have been a custom build. The thread has longevity; it started in 2011 and the latest comment I saw was in 2023.
If you buy the Drueke board, you’ll need the rules. But even if you have the Drueke rules, you’ll probably need something more specific. Maybe Drueke figured people would be more creative than they are. It’s a lot like life. I think sometimes you have to make up some rules.
Here’s the other cribbage version and it’s for 4 players. You play as teams. You can find these and more games on this website.
Hey, I found a great website for learning how to play cribbage with more than two players. In fact, you can learn how to play all kinds of games. If you already know how to play two-hander cribbage, you can learn the other common variations. Here’s the YouTube on the 3 player version.
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