Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I don't sweeten much of anything (arguably I'm sweet enough already)
You are a lot like me in that regard. I only really sweeten things if I'm following a recipe that calls for it. I don't add any sugar or sweetener to coffee or tea either.
I used to really like sweet stuff.
I don't anymore. I cut back on almost all candy, pie, cake etc when they said I was "pre-diabetic".
After a year of that, I just don't like sweet things (much)
Fishy Friday is challenge Friday,
and I think I completed my cooking challenge today. The only problem and biggest challenge is now: How the heck to upload the pics? Since April I have had technical difficulties with uploading pictures from my cell phone to my Google-Account, it just doesn´t upload the pics! No idea why?
I would recommend adding some cheese, though, to make it more banhauser.
You passed this part of the challenge for sure (coming up with her own recipe using my pickle relish as an ingredient). Looking forward to your Big Mac and Big Tasty copycats, as well as some more of your own creations, possibly.
I hope I'll be able to get to my fake chicken thing too eventually...
It has been over two months since Baby Peach, the little abandoned baby bird that was rescued by Prim, has sadly passed away. Still, now that we figured out how to upload pictures despite Prim's phone trolling her, it's time to share the old photos of our late Troll family member.
Check out the lovely nest that Primrose prepared for our little darling...
No Troll-related poker yet, with both of us being quite busy with work, and also still struggling with the heat wave. Primrose is still getting ready to take puppy steps getting back into poker altogether, while I spend most of my energy at the tables trying to find ways to beat 8-Game, as you can read on my blog.
We are still merrily trolling along, with another live meet-up planned next week, and we are also already working on a new series, which we hope we can introduce in early August. Meanwhile, I'm still on the lookout for stuff that could help me make some good vegetarian fake chicken for my part of our latest cooking challenge. I should have most of the stuff that is available in local stores, but as it often goes with the kinds of dishes I like to make, it's not that easy. Online purchase may have to fill some gaps.
The summer heat waves have been a piece of work for the Trolls, especially the lovely grindette, to the point that they pretty much shut down any attempts at proper Troll Challenges. Today, however, Primrose and I had another very enjoyable meetup, and "Africa" was our theme. We had dinner at a lovely local African restaurant, watched The Lion King (1994) at home, which Prim had actually never seen before but expressed an interest in watching it, this movie being one of my all-time favorites... and for our Troll Challenge, we also had something in mind that fits the theme:
Live Challenge No. 8: African Board Games
We played a bunch of Mancala games today. Long time followers may remember that this is not the first time I tried this with the grindette, who got introduced to these games two years ago.
Mancala refers to a group of several games which involve seeds or stones as playing pieces and a board or playing field made up of multiple hollows. The goal is usually to capture your opponent's seeds. Several hundred different mancala games are known to exist. Just to clear up some misconceptions, there is not a single game called "mancala", the same way there is not a single game called "cards", but you may have come across a version in the stores which looks like this:
This game is called Kalaha (or Kalah), but is often simply referred to as Mancala, leading some to believe that this is the only game of its kind. I even considered adding it to our lineup today, because I do own a board, but decided against it. As far as I know, this game is actually a 20th century American invention, inspired by some of the more traditional mancala games, but with no direct African roots, despite several claims to the contrary. For our Troll Challenge, I decided to solely stick to traditional African mancala games that really originated on that continent and are still played there today.
We decided on up to three games, all played on a 4x8 board. I won't explain the rules in depth here, but in order to better describe those games, here's a picture of the empty board with its sections marked:
How did the games go? Find out in our next post...
Also known as Bao la Kiswahili to distinguish it from some other versions, this game is played by the Swahili people in Eastern Africa, especially Tanzania and some of its neighboring countries. It's quite complex compared to most other mancala games and allows for some deep strategies, making it a little tough to pick up, but quite enjoyable to play.
Each player has 32 seeds, but only 10 of them are in play at the beginning of the game, in the starting formation shown below. The other 22 seeds are placed one after another in your front row, until they are all in play - though it's quite possible that the game ends before that stage is reached.
If the last seed you place falls into an occupied hole in your front row and your opponent has seeds in the hole opposite to it in their own front row, you capture those seeds and bring them back into play from one of your outermost holes in your front row. Otherwise, if your opponent has no adjacent seeds, you just keep "sowing" those seeds in a clockwise or counter-clockwise motion across your board, one seed in each hollow. This continues until the last seed falls into an empty hollow, ending your turn.
There are several restrictions on which seeds can go where, and I'm not going to bore you with a detailed explanation. If you are curious, feel free to check out this video, or better yet, you can check out a virtual version on Steam. It's commercial software, so I'm not going to link it, but it's easy to find on the store, it is simply called BAO.
My game against Prim was fiercely contested by the point we reached the second stage, where all the seeds had been placed on the board, known as the Mtaji phase. In this phase, you would simply choose any hollow to empty and "sow" its contents clockwise or counter-counterclockwise across your board again, and capture under the same rules as before. Our board looked like this at that point:
You win by either reducing your opponent to one or less seeds in each hole (making them unable to move since you can only empty holes with at least two seeds) or by clearing their entire front line - and this is what eventually brought me the victory today:
Prim 0 - 1 Harrier
To get a better idea about gameplay, watch a short clip of the game being played here:
Round Two: Omweso
Played in Uganda, this game, like most mancala games, starts with all seeds already in play. Once again, each side starts with 32 seeds. Interestingly, you can freely choose your starting formation, allowing for some unique individual strategies - but of course, neither Prim nor I were familiar with any decent opening formations. We decided to play it by ear and went with this:
In this game, you simply choose any of your hollows to empty in a counter-clockwise motion. You can capture your opponent's seeds if your last seeds falls into an occupied hole and your opponent has seeds in both of its opposite holes on their own board (i.e. both the holes in the front and back row in their column must be occupied). In this case, you would capture the seeds from both of their holes and put them into play on your own board, starting from the hole you just emptied.
Exceptions to the counter-clockwise movement can be made if you start from one of your leftmost two holes (either in the front or the back) and a direct capture is possible. In addition to making your opponent unable to move, you can also win by "Akakyala" if you manage to make captures on two separate turns before your opponent makes their first capture, or by "Emitwebiri" if you succeed to capture the seeds from both of your opponent's outermost holes in one single move.
Check out a full description of the rules in this video.
Our first game was chaotic... You could tell that we had no online version on Steam or anywhere else to practice this game. I made a capturing move, then remembered that I had to move counter-clockwise, which I didn't... and as I was trying to re-arrange the seeds, I remembered that I started from one of my leftmost holes, making the move legal after all - but impossible to fix because I had no idea anymore what seeds used to be where. We decided to restart, and because Prim made the opening move and I suspected that this might even be a disadvantage for her, I offered to go first this time.
Turns out that the opening formation I chose must have been very poor, because it didn't take long until I was forced into a situation where Prim could make her second capture, ending the game early with an Akakyala victory. This is how the board looked like in the end:
Prim 1 - 1 Harrier
Watch the game being played here:
Round Three: Hus
It came down to this... we were playing Hus, a similar game from Namibia. It can be considered a simplified version of the game above, more or less. This time, the starting formation is always the same, with each player starting with two seeds in all holes, except for the left half of their front row. On our board (I heard bigger board sizes are possible), it means that our 24 seeds were arranged like this:
You empty your holes in a clockwise direction this time, and capture your opponent's seeds if your last seed falls into an occupied hollow and at least the adjacent hole in your opponent's front row is occupied. This means:
Opponent's front row occupied, back row empty: You capture the seeds from the hole in their front row.
Opponent's front and back rows occupied: You capture the seeds from both holes.
Opponent's front row empty, back row occupied: You cannot capture any seeds.
No fancy victory conditions here, you just keep playing until one player is unable to move. I heard that whoever makes the first move is at a big advantage, so I let Prim start. It didn't seem like an advantage at all to me, and in the end, victory was mine (she would have had to empty her last hollow with the two seeds next, leaving her with only one seed in each):
I decided to give her another chance with me starting this time, seeing if it really is a noticeable advantage or disadvantage. If I win, the challenge is settled, if not, the round is inconclusive. And guess what... I noticed after several turns that I made multiple captures by moving counter-clockwise because I must have still had the Omweso version on my mind, and since it was too late to undo those moves by that point, I decided that it's best to simply make me lose by disqualification, which means that with a win and a loss for each of us, the Hus round remains tied - and so does the entire Troll Challenge, with a score of 1 - 1.
Spoiler
A nice and fair result, isn't it?
Well, Primrose and I had fun - and we certainly enjoyed the dinner we had at our African restaurant shortly afterwards:
It was a mixed plate with lamb, chicken, lentils, Alicha (Ethiopian vegetable stew) and salad. I had some injera (flatbread, commonly used in Ethiopia and Eritrea to grab your food, removing any need for cutlery), while Prim had some rice with it instead due to her gluten-intolerance.
The dinner was really awesome!!! It was the first time I had real African cuisine and I liked it a lot. Perfect for hot summer days, as I´m craving hot and spicy foods! At the moment I´m mainly cooking some Arabian or Mediterranean foods or just barbecue some meat and serve it with different salads. Harrier gave me a wonderful African cook book with delicious recipes, which of course I will cook in August, as the hot summer continues here.
The African board games were really interesting, but I have to admit that I´m not really good at them.
Sorry, Harrier, couldn´t wait for a possible challenge: I was craving this African food and decided to continue the "African feeling", as the weather is still hot here! So, decided to make one of those recipes from the book and started with Northern Africa: I made Gnawa-Couscous! Unfortunately, there was no lamb in the grocery store and I´m still waiting for the organic meat, I ordered a couple of days ago, so I took deer instead of lamb. And of course, due to celiac disease, polenta instead of couscous.
Made the mild version for Homer and the HOT (!!!) and spicy version (with Habanero chili!) for myself. DELICIOUS!
I have one of those African boards.
I played it once with my niece many years ago.
Mine is hand made, and uses seeds instead of stones.
Come to think of it, importing seeds of foreign plants into Canada was probably a violation (I bought the board in Memphis, USA while there for a work-related conference)
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I have one of those African boards.
I played it once with my niece many years ago.
Do you have one of those 4x8 boards like the one we were using, or one of those 2x6 boards with the bigger holes on the sides, like the one I showed in the opening post? Or possibly a different one entirely?
Do you remember what kind of game you were playing with it?
Using seeds as playing pieces in mancala games is common in Africa, I believe. Commercial sets over here are more likely to come with decorative stones. The Kalaha set I have came with tiny little marble pieces.
Originally posted by Harrier88 Do you have one of those 4x8 boards like the one we were using, or one of those 2x6 boards with the bigger holes on the sides, like the one I showed in the opening post? Or possibly a different one entirely?
Do you remember what kind of game you were playing with it?
Using seeds as playing pieces in mancala games is common in Africa, I believe. Commercial sets over here are more likely to come with decorative stones. The Kalaha set I have came with tiny little marble pieces.
Mine is 2x6, but I have no idea what the game was or how it was played.
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Mine is 2x6, but I have no idea what the game was or how it was played.
Looks like it was a Kalaha board then, if it also featured the two big holes on the side.
The goal of that game is to collect more seeds than your opponent in that big hole, which is called the Kalah. (The one on your right belongs to you, the one on your left to your opponent)
You would empty your holes in a counter-clockwise direction, which includes the holes on your opponent's side of the board. If your last seed lands in your own Kalah, you go again. If your last seeds lands in an empty hole on your side, you would immediately capture all the seeds on the opposite hole on your opponent's side and put them into your Kalah.
It's a fine game, but as I said, it seems to be a modern American invention rather than a traditional African game, which is what we were going for yesterday. Also, I believe this game has been mathematically solved by now.
After a long break, Primrose found her way back to the tables again today. Looks like Pokerstars put some strategically placed dresses and "Super Sale" signs in their tournament lobby.
Just kidding, Prim, it was great to rail you again.
Also, we figured that it was time for another poker challenge to celebrate the occasion. Primrose and I decided that cards were mussgo, and so were our opponents, so we played the $3.30 6-card Omaha PKO event of the MicroMillions and agreed to declare whoever busts out the most players the winner. The size of the bounties would only count as a tie-breaker in case we bust out the same amount of players, and if that's even too, whoever lasted longer would win. Oh, and we had to do it all on one bullet.
Hey, look, a 6-card straight...
Primrose played this game, which is rarely even running at all, for her very first time. I may have played it once or so, not sure. The only advice I could give her was "just play Omaha". Well, it seemed to work somewhat, because the grindette didn't take long to collect her first bounty, and some nice chips to go along with it. My start was a little shakier, but I eventually got my bounty too.
From that point on, we were usually pretty even in chips - and both made it ITM. Not only that, but we even made a few ladders. Primrose eventually settled for a quite respectable 3rd ladder finish, placing 118th out of 1,903 players (including re-entries). At around the same time, I picked up a very good pot, so things weren't quite over for me yet. This is what our chip graphs looked like at that moment:
Since we were equal in bounties and I lasted longer, this already settled the Troll Challenge for me, but of course I was still hungry for more. I had a pretty good run, and even picked up another decent bounty. The hand that eventually did me in, even though it didn't completely bust me out yet, was this one:
PokerStars, $2.94 + $0.36 - 6 Card Omaha Pot Limit - 4,000/8,000 - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat
Good draw, about a coinflip - but it didn't arrive. I couldn't recover from that one.
Still, a 43rd place finish for $13.38 including bounties was not bad at all. Here is the final chip graph for me:
I love those challenges where both Trolls are making a profit. A nice result for Team Troll in a largely unknown format. Still, there has to be a winner:
Does Harrier? 
Let´s see, what else I can create 
You could tell that we had no online version on Steam or anywhere else to practice this game. I made a capturing move, then remembered that I had to move counter-clockwise, which I didn't... and as I was trying to re-arrange the seeds, I remembered that I started from one of my leftmost holes, making the move legal after all - but impossible to fix because I had no idea anymore what seeds used to be where. We decided to restart, and because Prim made the opening move and I suspected that this might even be a disadvantage for her, I offered to go first this time.
