Originally posted by Primrose6789
I have to mention here, that Harrier has been pestering me with Christmas stuff since August
It's true that I once infamously trolled Primrose last year when she was visiting me on a super hot day in August and I picked her up at the train station while wearing a Santa hat and wishing her a Merry Christmas.
I also picked her up there last December while wearing a pair of bunny ears and wishing her a Happy Easter.This year, I don't think I did too much along these lines, but who knows... I'm a troll, after all.
Originally posted by Primrose6789
Okay, Harrier!Honey, if you like Christmas, that much, I dare you, I challenge you! Who of us can listen longer to our "favorite" (x)NOT Christmas song "Last Christmas"? Huh?
"Last Christmas" in a 10 hours loop. Who can stand longer? :f_cool::f_biggrin:
Yikes!
Well, we both used to listen to mainstream radio many years ago, we should be used to hearing Last Christmas being played 24/7.
It won't be pretty, but I'm down.
I already suggested some sort of "cringe challenge" when we were originally brainstorming this thread, seems like a fitting choice for our first one.
Maybe we'll do it this Thursday Live on Skype, looks like we both have nowhere to go that day - except to the insane asylum when we're done!
Cringe Challenge Update
As planned, we started our cringe challenge of listening to Last Christmas on loop today, while in a Skype call to verify that the other troll is indeed listening. I was cooking something in the meantime, which at least provided a bit of a distraction. 
We are both still hanging in there. Like anyone else who is hardened by years of grinding online poker games, Prim and I have developed a lot of mental toughness, I suppose. As of now, we both have made it through an hour. There will be a break for the two of us now, because Prim received a call earlier and has to make a quick trip to town on short notice. We'll be back in the evening. Hooray...
Cringe Challenge - Complete!
We continued to listen together throughout the evening... it wasn't pretty, and Prim even made some nice screenshots of my cringing face...
But... we made it through! 
Close to another hour. Now, we could continue our challenge tomorrow, when we'll be playing 5CD anyway, but then again... we already proved that we are capable of suffering through, there's no point in going any longer and ruining our Christmas time, is there? It's not like one of us is going to crack anyway.
Therefore, I hereby declare our first cringe challenge to be a draw! It was fun in a way - at least for Prim, when she was watching my reactions.
Tomorrow's challenge won't end in a draw, though we will be playing some draw. Time for another tourney weekend!
Your faces were just priceless!!
:mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr:
Looking forward to the next cringe challenge! :mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr::mdr:
Five Card Draw Shoot-out
PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 200/400 (100 ante) - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat
UTG: 5,370 (13 bb)
MP: 9,295 (23 bb)
CO: 4,901 (12 bb)
BU (Prim): 2,154 (5 bb)
SB: 350 (1 bb)
BB: 9,332 (23 bb)
Deal: (1,200)
1 fold, MP raises to 1,020, 1 fold, Prim 3-bets to 2,054 (all-in), 2 players fold, MP calls 1,034
Draw One: (5,308) (2 players, 1 all-in)
MP draws 1, Prim stands pat
Total pot: 5,308
Showdown:
Prim shows K♣ A♥ A♠ A♦ A♣ (four of a kind, Aces)
MP shows Q♣ Q♠ 5♠ 5♥ 8♣ (two pair, Queens and Fives)
Prim wins 5,308
Nice hand, Prim! You even had the perfect kicker. Standing pat is okay this time, since you were already all-in, and last to act.
Apart from that, Prim did not receive much help and while she was on track for ITM for a bit after the end of late reg, she didn't make it. Neither did I, I busted out a few places before ITM, but with $3 in bounties, which pays for a decent part of the $4.40 buy-in and makes me the winner of today's 5CD challenge.
Spoiler
Also, as I mentioned, we will do a new challenge on Saturdays now, called SNG Surprise! Every Friday, we shall spin the "Wheel of Trolls" to reveal a SNG which we will be playing on Saturday evening, the troll who lasts longer wins the challenge.
Our current pool of possible SNGs is:
$0.25 NL Hold'em 18-man MTSNG
$0.25 NL Hold'em 45-man MTSNG
$1.50 PL Courchevel Turbo
$1.50 Five Card Draw Turbo
$1.50 8-Game Turbo
$1.50 FL Badugi
$2 NL Omaha Hi/Lo 18-man MTSNG
And the Wheel of Trolls says.............
Spoiler
Oh... crap... it's Hold'em...
Well, see you tomorrow!
I was tired from todays very hard tennis practice and my legs hurt.
And you did not sing "three kings" while I was drawing three cards with my pair of kings, so that´s why I didn´t get trips!
Originally posted by Primrose6789
And you did not sing "three kings" while I was drawing three cards with my pair of kings, so that´s why I didn´t get trips!
I think I was quietly singing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" to myself when you had that hand... but that's because I happened to listen to that song at that time.
Oh well, better late than never...
I assume you prefer the metal version, though?
SNG Surprise
There was a bit of a surprise in store for myself too, because as it turns out, there don't seem to be any of those classic 45-man MTSNGs on Stars anymore. Instead, there are 18-45 player SNGs, which start when 18 players are registered, and then keep registration open until there are 45 entries. Doesn't even sound like such a bad idea, it should help with the traffic.
Prim was the one who was scouting for games to play when we were brainstorming this challenge, and she noted down those "18-45 player MTSNGs". I misunderstood this to mean 18-man SNGs and 45-man SNGs as two separate entries, but as she confirmed when we were ready to register, she meant exactly those 18-45 player games. I need to fix this on the Wheel of Trolls next time.
So, yes, we were playing some Hold'em after all these years, this weird 2-card game that people like to play. Can we still do it? Well, I certainly can't, I lasted about three minutes, I think. Then I received JJ and ran into AA... I loooooooooove Hold'em...
While we could charitably consider this a cooler, I probably did overplay it a little. I don't really care - as far as I'm concerned, Hold'em is a strange abnormality of poker for people whose hands are too small to hold more than two cards at once... or something like that.
Anyway, this challenge was over quickly, I railed Prim for a bit while I was regging for some "proper" poker games. She was doing a lot better, but ended up finishing 16th with 7 places paid after making an ICM shove with 77 and running into KK. Did I mention that I loooooooooove Hold'em... ♠_ugly:
Spoiler
Clear victory for Prim here. HORSE race tomorrow evening, with 80% less Hold'em. 
Then again, the Hold'em that's left is fixed limit, which is arguably even worse...
Yo guys, did you get the new Party update with the new tables, throwables, emoticons etc?
Originally posted by nsavov
Yo guys, did you get the new Party update with the new tables, throwables, emoticons etc?
Yes, I did. But I disabled all those, distract me from correct precise PLO (as good as it´s possible, of course, I´m not a pro)
Harrier, if you looooooooooooove running with JJ into AA, with KK into AA, with QQ into KK, then try Omaha! :f_ugly::f_ugly:
It´s full of set over set, full over full, str8 over str8, flush over flush, folding AAxx, folding a set because it´s no good (anymore).....
Sunday HORSE Race
Can't really complain about having had such a bad start - after all, one of my hands in the first Stud part made it into our Hand of the Day thread. However, it turned out that 20% Hold'em are still 20% too much for me... Had to take my rebuy during the second FLHE part and didn't do a lot better from that point on either. FLO8 wasn't too kind to me and bad Razz runouts sealed the deal.
I played pretty poorly again, honestly, I was too focused on the other games in my grind. To be fair, they are more important, but I still should have done a little better.
This challenge was all Prim's then. I wish I could comment more on her game, as I usually do, but again, I was pretty distracted by my SNGs. I did have her table open, though, and saw some of her good progress - good enough for a mincash, in fact. Congrats on the cash, Prim, and on handily defeating me yet again in the challenge. I believe this also gives you the overall lead in the Troll Challenges again as far as poker is concerned, though I got the lead in the non-poker challenges.
It will be a while until our next poker challenge, but we may do another cringe challenge this week because we had so much "fun" with our last one...
And I wonder how Prim's Twelve Days of Christmas are coming along...
It has been a bit of a slow trolling week, we didn't even get to the next cringe challenge that we've been considering... maybe next time.
Tomorrow, there will be no Five Card Draw Shoot-out either, because the trolls will meet up in person again. :f_love::f_love::f_love: There will be another Live Challenge, as usual, as well as a Live Cooking Challenge, because there won't be any takeout this time, it's my turn to cook for the two of us. Will Primrose approve?
Really looking forward to it. There will be another SNG Surprise on Saturday, so it's time to spin the Wheel of Trolls again. And it says.....
Spoiler
We kind of got two for the price of one today. First, there was the cooking challenge, in which I originally planned to cook some Burger King style sandwiches for Prim, and simply let her be the judge. It turned a little different than expected...
I know that Prim likes to cook, and already assumed that she would give me a bit of a hand here and there, which of course is much appreciated. 
But when we were done forming the raw patties, she suggested already putting some of them in the frying pan, since we wouldn't have enough space to cook all of them at once anyway. I agreed, and let her handle it while I was getting the fries and the onions from the basement... and when I returned, I found out that Prim had completely taken over in my kitchen! She was handling everything, even the stuff I hadn't really prepared yet, and decided on her own when which food was done cooking, despite me setting a clock for another time frame.
Prim and I already had an idea for a possible Live Challenge involving a real life version of the game Overcooked, in which we would cook something while deliberately making sure that all ingredients we need are spread out as much as possible in the kitchen, and having placed some arbitrary obstacles on the floor to make everything as much of a hassle as possible, like in the game. It was kind of like that today... I had to keep making dashes to the basement or a downstairs fridge to get this or that ingredient (or put the rest of it back), or to my laptop, which was three rooms away. in order to look up the next step of the recipe, while we kept hastily reaching ingredients back and forth and shouting the next step in the cooking process at each other.
So yes, today's challenge was less "Harrier Cooks" and more "Real Life Overcooked featuring Prim and Harrier". It was a bit hectic at times, but we both had a lot of fun, and while I didn't really end up cooking for Prim as I had planned, I think I did a pretty good job as her sous-chef. We both enjoyed the burgers too, which were variations of the Big King and the Chili Cheese Burger, though I think Prim freestyled a bit with the ones she had too. Her take on it should be following tomorrow, as well as the pictures that she took, but I think I can already say that we both definitely passed the challenge.
Next part of our Live Challenge coming up shortly...
Live Challenge No. 3 - Lego Sports
Christmas is fast approaching, and all the little kiddies are waiting for Santa (or Vorpal, as he is known around these parts) to bring them those nice toys that they put on their wishlists. Even Harrier embarked on a quest to get his paws on a few cool Lego sets that he missed out on during his childhood, and today's Live Challenge featured a few sets from his old collection too... which are now technically intended for my little nephew, but hey - the trolls needed them back for a short bit.
We had five sports themed Lego games to play with, and were playing them in a series of best of five. First there were soccer, basketball and ice hockey, and if we didn't have a winner after those three games, we would settle things on the street, with my smaller street basketball and street hockey sets. The rules were usually that the first person to score five times in a game wins.
Round One: Soccer (3409 Championship Challenge, released in 2000)
We started with the world's most popular sport, and the earliest release of these Lego sports sets, which went on to see many updates and re-releases. This one is pretty basic, but functional. Each team has six players including the goalie and the figures are placed in little stands with springs. By pulling back and releasing them, you would flick the ball forward, until it lands in another of those hollows where the players are standing - or inside the goal or halfway across the room.
I decided that Prim could use a little help, so I recruited the legendary French midfielder and master playmaker Zinedine Zidane for her team.
Despite Zizou's assistance, Prim ended up falling short after taking an early lead, I think the end result was 5-2 for me.
Harrier 1-0 Prim
Round Two: Basketball (3432 NBA Challenge, released in 2003)
Probably the most feature-rich of the games. Each team has five players with little springs in the leg parts, who are standing on hollows like in the soccer game. By using the leg springs, you can bend the players over to pick up the ball and then flick them back and release them to make them throw the ball.
You can also move a defending player around and even make them jump to block shots by turning a wheel in the back. They can still pick up and throw the ball like all the other players. There is also an attacking player who can move back and forth in a lane, an idea which was also used in a later version of the soccer game.
As before, I enlisted some former NBA stars to help out (sorry for the bad lighting). Prim got Dirk Nowitzki and Vince Carter for her team, I got Gary Payton.
Prim got the first point again, but once more, the end result was 5-2 for Harrier.
Harrier 2-0 Prim
Round Three: Ice Hockey (3578 NHL Championship Challenge, released in 2004)
This was potentially the last game, as Prim was trailing by two now and in need of another "Miracle on Ice". The game is pretty straightforward, each team gets a goalie, a defenseman, a center and a forward. Each player can be moved around on a rod, not unlike the rotating bars used on foosball tables to move rows of players, except that the Lego hockey players can move around in all directions and you can also twist the rod to make the base of the player rotate, which contains a little hook representing the player's hockey stick, thereby actually making them "shoot" the puck. The players do carry some "sticks" in their hands too, but they're just for show.
The goalies have no functions besides moving around to block shots, and the centers cover almost the whole field with their movement range, while the defensemen and forwards are more limited in their range and can only move in just about their quarter of the field. This can cause the game to be quite crammed, especially with the obstructive centers, which is why the set came with a few extra pieces to limit the players ranges so there would be no overlap.
For this game, we decided to skip that and go with the full range. I did not have any retired NHL stars to help us out this time - but Prim didn't need them, because with our full range movement, she was able to make brute force speak for itself. ♠_evil: Not unlike in real hockey, there were a lot of fights between players which were completely unrelated to whatever happens with the puck, and often, we (especially Prim :f_wink:) just ended up slamming players into the puck and each other while using the actual shooting function only sparingly. It was just an all-out brawl for the most part - again, not unlike real hockey. "I went to the fight last night and a hockey game broke out..."
But guess what? Prim and her classic hyper-aggressive style won, I think it was 5-3. This isn't over yet...
Harrier 2-1 Prim
Round Four: Street Hockey (3579 NHL Street Hockey, released in 2004)
So it's off to the streets then, and we decided to stick with hockey since Prim had so much fun with it (we had to take a few timeouts because she was laughing so hard). It works the same as the ice hockey one, except that it's 1 vs 1 on a much smaller field. Again, there's an option to limit the movement range to your own half of the court, for an interference-free game focused on shooting rather than raw force... but Prim likes her raw force, so we went for full range movement again.
The game can be summed up like this: We placed the puck in the middle and went to slam our players straight into it, after which the puck would either land inside a goal right away, or we would make our players brawl again until this happens. Just look at how Prim's side of the field looked like after she decided to give her player a good shove to start things off...
Anyway... not sure about the exact result, probably another 5-3, but Prim won.
Harrier 2-2 Prim
Round Five - Street Basketball (3431 Streetball 2 vs 2, released in 2003)
It all comes down to this, the final round. Long time followers may remember one of my blog posts from last year, in which I mentioned buying and assembling this set, because I did not own this one back in the day. Again, it's the same as the bigger basketball set, just on a smaller scale and with the more fancy features missing, it now only involves the picking up and throwing part.
We retained our all-star teams, together with a regular forth figure, who is now looking a little out of place, and we decided that the first troll to score three points wins this time, since the game is very straightforward and pretty much only involves shooting hoops now, without any of that passing and defending.
After a few unsuccessful attempts from both of us, Prim managed to nail three straight shots with Dirk Nowotzki, for a sensational come-from-behind victory in this month's Live Challenge!
Harrier 2-3 Prim
Congratulations, Prim, it was an amazing comeback and your first Live Challenge win!
Spoiler
Originally posted by Primrose6789
The one on the left is a version of the Big King, the one on the right would be the Chili Cheese Burger, though you don't really see the chili cheese sauce here, of which we made so much that we even used some for our fries. The buns I used were a bit too large, so the sandwiches don't appear as tall as they're supposed to be.
Prim's burgers can be seen in the background. She was using different, gluten-free buns, which were actually surprisingly good, I tried a bit of them when Prim left me some leftovers. As I mentioned, she was freestyling a bit with her burgers, hence the giant salad leaf sticking out of it. You are normally supposed to rip the lettuce into little pieces before placing it on the top bun.
This led to a funny bit when I was carefully stacking my burgers to emulate the Big King and noticed Prim doing her own thing with hers, so I blurted out "You're not following the instructions!" :f_eek:. Our free-spirited grindette replied with an ironic "Yes, sir!", but I managed to calmly tell her the intended order of toppings so her own creation comes a little closer to the intended Big King copycat, now that I had already prepared the proper sauce for it and all.
There was also a bit of an argument with my b̶o̶s̶s̶ beloved guest over the necessity of washing the lettuce before using it. I never bothered with it, but Prim insisted that it's necessary... which is weird, because I remember once insisting that before making sushi, the rice must be thoroughly washed, which she considered unnecessary. Anyway, I eventually gave in and gave the still packaged head of lettuce a little splash from underneath the kitchen faucet - there, it's washed now.
There's really never a dull moment with the two of us...
Harrier88
This led to a funny bit when I was carefully stacking my burgers to emulate the Big King and noticed Prim doing her own thing with hers, so I blurted out "You're not following the instructions!" :f_eek:.
There was also a bit of an argument with my b̶o̶s̶s̶ beloved guest over the necessity of washing the lettuce before using it. I never bothered with it, but Prim insisted that it's necessary... which is weird, because I remember once insisting that before making sushi, the rice must be thoroughly washed, which she considered unnecessary. Anyway, I eventually gave in and gave the still packaged head of lettuce a little splash from underneath the kitchen faucet - there, it's washed now.
The lettuce has to be washed, not the rice! Period.
