The yellow-and-brown marble in the middle picture was know to us as kids as a "bacon marble" and was highly prized.
When we grew up, my Mum took all of our marbles and put them in an old wine bottle — I still have it.
Over time, the bottle — like myself — has lost some if its marbles.
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
The yellow-and-brown marble in the middle picture was know to us as kids as a "bacon marble" and was highly prized.
When we grew up, my Mum took all of our marbles and put them in an old wine bottle — I still have it.
The marbles are always given names in those YouTube races and competitions... but "bacon" wasn't really on my mind when I saw it. 
I think I would have called it something like "Desert Heat" because of it's light brownish colors, or possibly "Java", because it kind of reminds me of espresso.
They were all bought from a local online store that I recently discovered, which has all kinds of designs. The marbles that originally came with the set, which I was using as a child back then, all had this transparent "cat's eye" design, which looks like this:
Looks pretty cool too and works fine for regular marble runs, but for proper races, some variety and color coding comes in handy.
Marbles had other names too — a "cob" was a larger marble, sometimes uses as a shooter when playing "pots"
There were also "peewees" — you can see a few blue ones in the wine bottle.
The American kids also used the word "taw" but no-one else did.
For the marble run we had when I was a kid, we ended up adding a bunch of different marbles too, including some that were originally completely decorative.
And truth be told, I don't even know how to "play marbles". They were always just a thing that rolls down some track to me - which did offer a surprising amount of play variations. The construction was part of the fun already, of course. So was just watching them run down. Sometimes we would wait until one marble got stuck and clogged up the track, then act like they are cars on the highway and pretend to do radio reports about those "traffic jams".
Actual marble races are now only possible thanks to those extra parts I got just recently, inspired by those races I saw on YouTube. But we already did some competitions of sorts back then, where we would make the marbles jump off an incomplete track, see who makes it, put the losers aside, and repeat the process until only one was left.
Sorry, Prim... this is now a marbles blog. 
Originally posted by Primrose6789
No. Because you´ve lost your marbles!
I'll never get tired of that pun, no matter how often we'll make it.
Harrier´s Challenge: S.O.S.! Help Prim!
I think many of you guys may have noticed that I haven´t posted much in this forum during the past weeks. Well. Here´s the point: Extreme lack of motivation for poker! I took a longer break from poker after a loosing streak and as I am just a hobby player, the temptation is big to do something else: watching a movie, hanging out with friends, do sports, do outdoor activities, reading a book, gardening, cooking or gaming.
This is how I spent the past couple of weeks. Poker? Meh. I´d rather do the gardening, the laundry, the cleaning, I´d rather read a book or do a nice gaming session.
Our todays Troll Challenge wasn´t a great help either (lost top set vs runner runner flush again!), so my motivation is near zero.
Harrier tries to motivate me and that´s his challenge: Help Prim to re-gain her passion and motivation for poker!
Hi-Lo
We're back with another poker challenge today, and this time, a little different than usual. 
Normally, Prim and I would play a PLO8 MTT, which we intended to do this time as well, but I suggested adding some Courchevel Hi-Lo SNGs for some variety.
Those SNGs were already started before the MTT, and we intended to include them all in the challenge, see who got further in each of them, and then do best of 3, best of 5... depending on how many we ended up playing.
Poor Prim is still struggling with motivation, which is why I suggested adding a few new games to the schedule today. Unfortunately, she continued to be pretty card dead in our first Courchevel SNG. After several preflop folds, I had the honor of taking her out myself:
PokerStars, $1.76 + $0.24 - Courchevel H/L Pot Limit - 75/150 - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat
UTG: 2,290 (15 bb)
CO (Hero): 3,308 (22 bb)
BU: 1,075 (7 bb)
SB: 1,627 (11 bb)
BB (Prim): 700 (5 bb)
Pre-Flop: (225) 3♠ Hero is CO with 8♣ 2♦ K♠ 5♠ 5♣
1 fold, Hero raises to 300, 2 players fold, Prim calls 150
Flop: (675) 3♠ 4♠ T♣ (2 players)
Prim checks, Hero bets 450, Prim calls 400 (all-in)
Turn: (1,475) K♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (1,475) T♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: 1,475
Showdown:
CO (Hero) shows 8♣ 2♦ K♠ 5♠ 5♣ (HI: two pair, Kings and Tens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 44%, Flop: 63%, Turn: 58%, River: 100%)
BB (Prim) shows 4♣ A♥ 3♥ Q♦ 6♣ (HI: two pair, Tens and Fours)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 56%, Flop: 37%, Turn: 42%, River: 0%)
CO (Hero) wins 1,475
Too bad, Prim... 
I ended up placing 2nd.
Prim played another PLO8 Turbo SNG on the side, then, which at least gave her a few pots, but otherwise wasn't too kind to her either. We also added another Courchevel SNG, and Prim got the chips in good:
PokerStars, $1.76 + $0.24 - Courchevel H/L Pot Limit - 25/50 - 4 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat
UTG: 1,159 (23 bb)
BU (Hero): 3,082 (62 bb)
SB: 3,171 (63 bb)
BB (Prim): 1,588 (32 bb)
Pre-Flop: (75) J♥ Hero is BTN with 4♥ 8♠ T♠ K♥ 9♠
UTG calls 50, Hero raises to 100, 1 fold, Prim 3-bets to 375, UTG calls 325, Hero calls 275
Flop: (1,150) J♥ A♠ K♣ (3 players)
Prim bets 1,150, UTG calls 784 (all-in), BU (Hero) folds
Turn: (2,718) 4♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (2,718) 7♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: 2,718
Showdown:
BB (Prim) shows J♠ 9♥ 7♥ Q♣ J♦ (HI: three of a kind, Jacks)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 43%, Flop: 71%, Turn: 49%, River: 0%)
UTG shows 2♣ Q♠ 5♣ A♣ 3♣ (HI: a flush, Ace high; LO: 7-4-3-2-A)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 57%, Flop: 29%, Turn: 51%, River: 100%)
UTG wins 2,718
That's nasty... 70% equity and then losing to a runner-runner flush and a backdoor low draw... Unfortunately, Prim is all too familiar with this kind of situation recently, which is supposed to be a little rarer in Courchevel, but it didn't help here. She got out in the next hand.
Luckily, I managed to step up for Team Troll and ship this SNG for both of us, against the very player who sucked out against Prim in the hand above, even though he entered the heads-up phase with a sizable chip lead.
We decided to stick to best of 3, in which case the PLO8 tournament, which Prim didn't feel like playing anymore anyway, would be skipped.
This leaves me as the winner of the poker challenge, but I gladly take on the new one Prim gave me already. Don't you worry, brave grindette. We've both been through worse, I'll get you up and running again soon enough.
Yes, you had the honor of taking me out with my desperate emergency all-in. At least this one was funny! 
All right, let's get Prim's motivation back.
Truth be told, PLO can be quite a rollercoaster, and equities run close together in that game. How about something else for a change, something simpler?
I suggested some FL Five Card Draw cash to her. Traffic leaves a lot to be desired, but it's a simple game to play, maybe just right for the grindette to get some poker in while she tries to find some motivation. I will be away for the most part, so I won't be able to assist her personally, but I did prepare a spreadsheet to help her keep track of her results.
Let's see if our grindette will find some time to play, and maybe pick up a few BBs. It can't go as badly as my own session tonight, right?
Originally posted by Harrier88
All right, let's get Prim's motivation back.Truth be told, PLO can be quite a rollercoaster, and equities run close together in that game. How about something else for a change, something simpler?
I suggested some FL Five Card Draw cash to her. Traffic leaves a lot to be desired, but it's a simple game to play, maybe just right for the grindette to get some poker in while she tries to find some motivation. I will be away for the most part, so I won't be able to assist her personally, but I did prepare a spreadsheet to help her keep track of her results.
Let's see if our grindette will find some time to play, and maybe pick up a few BBs.
Alrighty! Now I have no choice, no chance to chicken out, right?
Okay, gonna do it.
Still quiet in here for the trolls when it comes to poker. As far as I've heard, Prim's motivation is slowly coming back, but both of us lack the time and energy for poker at the moment. Both Prim and I are under a lot of stress from work lately, and our sports schedule is heating up too. We will be back, but it will take weeks, possibly months.
The trolls took Friday off to have another nice and relaxing all-day meet-up tomorrow, with not much scheduled besides chilling and fun, but there will be one Troll Challenge for the two of us tomorrow: Beat Overcooked 2!
We've been playing it online with each other on and off for a few months by now and got continually better at it. Today, we got pretty close, but tomorrow shall be the day we beat it - end of story!
Maybe there'll be some more challenges on the way, but Overcooked 2 must be completed! No pressure, Prim. 
Yes, guys!
High work load at the moment and it´s outdoor season.
Anyways, tomorrow, we will deliver the best cooking of our lives, in Overcooked 2 and in real life! 
Originally posted by Primrose6789
Anyways, tomorrow, we will deliver the best cooking of our lives, in Overcooked 2 and in real life!
Yes, there will be some real cooking at home too - and I'm not sure yet which one will be more chaotic.
Cooking Trolls
Not really a proper Troll Challenge this time, but as I mentioned yesterday, we did have the clear goal of beating Overcooked 2 today. And I'm proud to say that we did it. 
It took a few tries, and our focus was waning after the first couple of attempts, but then we started it again after doing something else and having a few drinks, and it worked brilliantly, despite one bad mistake on my part near the end, but we played well enough to make up for it.
That's nice, but we did some real cooking too. In the week before our meetup, we actually had some discussions about it, still unsure whether we were going to cook at all instead of getting takeout, and if so, what we were going to cook. Then one night, as we were chatting after I returned from work, Prim dropped me those lines:
"Oh, before I forget, there was a SALE ON GROUND MEAT, Harrier"
"Bio ground pork at half price"
That settled things for me - we were going to make burgers, there was one version I once made which I really wanted to show Prim anyway, and with all that inexpensive and yet high quality ground beef, it was the perfect opportunity. 
Except it was ground pork instead of ground beef, as you probably already noticed - but I didn't. I just read "ground meat" back then and immediately thought "great, we're making burgers!".
After having been very careful to make sure that every single ingredient for my special sauce was at home so everything would be perfect, I was a little shocked to see Prim unpacking that pork, but... people who know Prim tend to know that she has this habit of taking a few irritated deep breaths whenever she's about to get really angry - and that's what she did right there when I mentioned my strong preference for beef for this particular burger variant, so I decided to just appreciate what she brought me. Really, pork is fine. Works just as well, doesn't it? Yes, it was all good. Thank you very much, Prim. 
The cooking process was a little hectic and reminded us a lot of the game we were going to beat later on, but Prim confirmed that those were the best burgers she ever had. We forgot to take pictures in our hurry, we were a little hungry, after all. Here's an older one from when I first made this kind of burger last October, it's a copycat of the Big Tasty from McDonald's:
As always, Prim and I had a blast, and this meetup was just what we needed after those stressful last few weeks. And our cooking was top notch too, both in real life and in our games. A trolling success on all levels.
people who know Prim tend to know that she has this habit of taking a few irritated deep breaths whenever she's about to get really angry - and that's what she did right there when I mentioned my strong preference for beef for this particular burger variant, so I decided to just appreciate what she brought me.
Can the Trolls still Hold'em?
We all started our online poker careers playing Hold'em, didn't we? Prim and I are no different, of course, though we have moved on to other formats by now. As you should...
With the MicroMillions offering some cheap grinding options and both of us trolls still not fully back into the swing of things, we decided to just play a simple $1.10 Hold'em PKO MTT (I think it was MicroMillions 56). And yeah... it still baffles me that this game became the most popular format of poker...
I got out early with QQ<KK all-in preflop, then took another bullet where I was dealt JJ in BB and my opponent in SB decided to instashove preflop with AT, turn was A, then I ended up pushing AJ vs A9 preflop and the flop came 99x... yeah, lovely card game... 
This already leaves Prim as the winner, since she didn't take any additional bullets. I think she even did all right in the beginning, but I saw her exit hand where she lost with QQ all-in preflop, I think it was against AK. I'll leave it to her to tell you more about it tomorrow.
So yeah, Prim wins, but honestly - there never truly is a winner when it comes to Hold'em...
Yes, I lost a flip with QQ vs AK.
I could double up early on in the tournament, lost a couple of pots, then jammed with KJ and won vs A7 and the rest went totally card-dead. Jammed as shortie with QQ from UTG and got called by CO who held AK. Turn was an A and no help for me, so out I was.
Hey trolls and friends, hope you had a great Easter.
Not much was going on for the two of us, as Prim was away visiting her parents and I was recovering from a bad infection, but with spring in full swing already, we have loads of ideas for fun and sporty Live Troll Challenges for the following months. In fact, I managed to test out some concepts already during a fun family meetup on Easter Sunday.
Poker challenges may follow soon too, even though I'm still dealing with some weird and possibly infection-related pains (it will be off to the doc tomorrow) and Prim will be quite busy with work starting next week.
In the meantime, I have a cooking-related mini Troll Challenge on short notice: "Use up your Easter Eggs!" But only for me, because Prim used up hers already.
That's my bountiful harvest: One classic hard-boiled easter egg. Odd lighting, I guess... rest assured that it's painted yellow.
With only one egg, you may not get all that much eggy goodness out of it, but I spread it as much as possible.
Now just add some ham...
...some mayonnaise...
...and put it in your sandwich toaster. Simple stuff, but you can't really go wrong with it.
I'm just going to declare victory here real quick before Prim complains about the mayonnaise...
