I had to add that yesterday was my last Saturday off until competitions start and until August 27th I won´t be able to play poker on Saturdays. After the 27th, it will be a pretty long time again until I can play poker on a Saturday, which will be October 1st. In August and September my Saturdays will be filled with tennis. Anyways, it was very nice to be back at the tables and to play 6-card Omaha for the very first time. As we can see, I did pretty good by just playing PLO. 
Notifications
Clear all
Originally posted by Harrier88
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.
No big end holes — this is what I have:
Oh, this one. No, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with any games being played on that kind of board, but it is very likely intended for genuine African games.
Do you remember where you bought it?
Originally posted by Harrier88
Oh, this one. No, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with any games being played on that kind of board, but it is very likely intended for genuine African games.Do you remember where you bought it?
I bought it from a street vendor in Memphis.
I believe that you just piled the seeds in front of you — so no need for big holes
Although these rules don't look familiar, they would work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oware
Summer has been tough on the Trolls on so many levels. There was the brutal and often humid heat, the huge workload, and of course our sports, which are no cakewalk this year either. Primrose had to deal with injuries and sickness, making it impossible to keep up her usual training regimen, and still giving her a little handicap on the court too. I myself only made it to less than half of all scheduled team practices due to my inconvenient work schedule.
We've been longing for the start of Fall for a long time, and now it is time for the final sprint. Tennis competition season starts for the grindette, and will last until the first weekend of September. My football season will recommence next weekend after a bit of a break, with three more games in a row, ending it on the last weekend of August. It is going to be a tough few final weeks for us... but then we're finally done, and we can welcome Fall with open arms.
Even our workload should be lifted a little... well, then again, that's what Primrose thought many times before this year. Who knows what will come up next, but at least she should be able to afford taking it easy then if she wanted to, I believe. As for me, it's difficult to tell, there are still a lot of loose ends to tie up, but there may be change on the horizon - hopefully for the better.
Despite difficult circumstances, Primrose already did a bang-up job on the court today, winning her singles match 6-3 and 6-3. 
She was less lucky at doubles, but well done nonetheless! 
Let's keep trolling. It's not going to be easy, for either of us, but when we're done, we should finally have some time again for poker and some of the other things we love. And maybe we can even squeeze in another live meet-up this month too.
Week 1 is now safely behind us - well done, Trolls!
We both made it through our practice sessions this week without cutting any corners, and also through our matches today. I got a few plays in, and my team got another good win to cement our stay in the national leagues. The grindette, meanwhile, kicked some serious butt once again. Despite facing opponents who compete on a much higher level, she fought like a lioness in her David and Goliath encounter in the singles match, and even secured an amazing win in her doubles match together with her husband (her real husband, not the Troll husband :f_wink:), who also did a great job.
I think we both deserve some rest tomorrow - and we also should have time for some poker. Another classic HORSE race, maybe?
Yes, my yesterday´s singles was really a David vs Goliath :f_biggrin::f_ugly: At least Villain needed about 2 hours to finally (!) defeat me, because I didn´t give up on any ball! Also the doubles were David vs Goliath, but this time "David" (Homer and I) won! ♠_biggrin:♠_cool:
Originally posted by Primrose6789
Yes, my yesterday´s singles was really a David vs Goliath :f_biggrin::f_ugly: At least Villain needed about 2 hours to finally (!) defeat me, because I didn´t give up on any ball! Also the doubles were David vs Goliath, but this time "David" (Homer and I) won! ♠_biggrin:♠_cool:
Goliath would be a rather formidable tennis player!
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Goliath would be a rather formidable tennis player!
He just couldn't return that one delivery that was flung at him...
Sunday HORSE Race
It was that time again! 
And I wish I would have anything interesting to say about it, but really... the Trolls were card dead. I took a rebuy, which didn't help either. None of us cashed, but Prim lasted longer. Not really the most exciting thing to do on a Sunday night, I think I now remember why we discontinued the challenges based on that $1.10 HORSE MTT. Not sure if we are going to repeat them after our "final sprint" this summer, when we expect to finally have some more time for poker.
At least we were able to meet at the tables again. And while the game was a bit of a disappointment for both of us, Primrose won fair and square.
Back to the "final sprint" starting tomorrow.
Still Sprinting
We are both about halfway through our Final Sprint. It's tough at times, especially with my new work hours, but we persevere. There will be a little break from it tomorrow, when Primrose and I intend to do a little trip this time, instead of meeting up at my place. We plan to combine it with a Troll Challenge, of course, but the weather might throw a wrench in the works. There should be plenty of nice pictures, at least.
Also, we still have some long-running challenges, remember? There is cooking, baking... oh, and Prim still needs to play some Drunk Super Mario Land.
We have not forgotten about them, we just couldn't find the time to get to them. Luckily, my brother is visiting today, and he brought me some stuff that could help with the fake chicken for my cooking challenge:
I got some tahini paste, some tempura mix and some nutritional yeast. Now I just need some plain old wheat gluten, and I should be ready, I think.
Also, I look forward to announce another series on this blog very soon. I can already tell that it will involve some creative cooking... which is a term that usually makes Primrose pretty worried when she hears it from me. Stay tuned...
Live Challenge No. 9 (Frankfurt Edition) - "Palmen-Golf"
Today's live meet-up was very special, because for the first time ever, we did not meet at my place, but in the city of Frankfurt. We might do more of these from time to time, because it is a little easier for Primrose to get there. She would normally travel through Frankfurt anyway on her way to me, so rather than having her go the extra miles, we could simply meet up more or less at the halfway point.
Our destination today was the lovely Palmengarten in Frankfurt, a large botanical garden with plenty of exotic species of plants on display, looking back at a tradition of over 150 years.
Well, as you can see in the pic above, they may not have the best translators on their team... but we were thoroughly impressed by all the beautiful trees, ferns and flowers around us. 
For me, it was actually the fourth time that I've been to that place, but the three times before that were all part of school trips in 3rd, 6th and 11th grade, respectively. For the grindette, it was her very first time, and she did not know what exactly to expect, but she was more than pleased with it.
The building in the background of this picture is Frankfurt's TV tower known as the "Europaturm", the tallest building in the city, with a height of about 337.5 meters.
We have plenty of pictures to show, so expect a series of posts... but first - we have a Troll Challenge to get to! What was it?
Simple, there was a miniature golf course in the Palmengarten too - let's just do this, then! Miniature golf was one of our first ideas for a Live Challenge anyway, back when we started, and it was probably not the last time we played it either.
We had up to ten strokes to sink that ball, then we had to forfeit the hole and add another two strokes as a penalty.
How did it go? Well... we were doing all right, I guess. Primrose sometimes had some pretty creative ways of getting that ball moving, but I decided to be a bit lenient with her, especially on the nastier tracks.
This one, for example, where her ball got stuck in that maze thing, and I allowed her to use her club to gently guide it towards the hole rather than making her start over again. 
Then there's the slightly infamous "volcano" track, where you need to hit that sweet spot to get that ball exactly to the top. Too much force will send the ball flying, while slightly too little force will send you back where you started. If you've played miniature golf before, you're surely familiar with those tracks, the course at the Palmengarten featured most of the standard stuff.
On this one, Prim found a clever little way to just push the ball up that volcano hockey-style... but who's going to object to such a cute little puppy.
Then, of course, there's this track where you need to get a straight and forceful shot to sink the ball right into a net. I always detested that track as a child, and I don't think I ever even saw anyone complete that hole. I didn't really play miniature golf since those childhood days, and I felt the urge to just forfeit that hole prematurely after my first few attempts. When I did sink it in on the 9th shot, though... I of course had to take a picture.
Other than that, not much to say, just standard miniature golf tracks. common stuff.
But... how was the score after the 18th hole?
Primrose 101, Harrier 78 - a win for your favorite squirrel.
More posts and pictures from our trip coming up soon...
Check out the fascinating plants on display in the dedicated "palm house".
Oh, and there were some fishies too.
...and some people willing to throw their money away... isn't the picture below just the perfect visual analogy to micro stakes poker? 
Also, some fish tanks in an underground section, for some of the more exotic candidates.
Hey. isn't that the one from Finding Nemo?
There were also some beasts of a fish in an outside pond - more about that one later.
Some signs on that wooden bridge pointed out that you were not supposed to feed those fish. Honestly, they looked like they would bite your fingers off if given half a chance. They seemed quite satisfied munching on fallen leaves, though.
I don´t know what they were munching but I was tempted to throw some left-over bread from our picknick into the water.
One of the areas that always left the biggest impression on me was the "Tropicarium", which is divided into several sub-sections housing plants from various regions.
Here are some of the highlights, in no particular order.
Check it out, they had some guarana plants. Their fruits are quite heavy on the caffeine. This stuff is commonly used in energy drinks and the like. I sometimes have some cereal bars that contain it when I need to get up earlier than I care for.
One area of the Tropicarium is about the flora of the semidesert. This one mainly features cacti.
Lots and lots of cacti.
On my first trip to the Palmengarten ever, back in 1998, I remember my teacher guiding us through those buildings, and being frustrated that the area about the fog desert was closed off that day, because he said that it would have been a great example of typical desert flora. I think I entered it at least once during one of my later trips, but I was eager to step into it again, after remembering my grade school teacher's "hype" about it.
Unfortunately, it turned out that it was closed off for us too, it is currently only open to the public on Mondays between 10 AM and 2 PM. I did, however, manage to snap some pictures from behind the glass walls:
But not every section of the Palmengarten is about tropical and exotic plants.
This little flower bed, for example, is about "summer flowers from 2022":
There's the bamboo grove...
The rose garden, which includes a much larger part on the opposite side of that building...
One house was dedicated to subantarctic plants. Here is one little section about the plants of Tasmania, maybe Lazza recognizes some of them.
Another house was about insects and butterflies. You could enter a room where those butterflies from around the world fly around, which is also not open to the public at all times, but Prim and I got lucky. Unfortunately, those guys are tough to capture on camera when they keep fluttering around like that. We were especially impressed by that gorgeous South American Blue Morpho butterfly, which I didn't manage to capture either.
There was a more informative section of that house too, which among other things allowed the visitors to take a sniff from the smells that certain insects find attractive. Primrose got trolled a little by that one, because after some of those lovely sweet and/or flowery smells that attract bees, butterflies and nocturnal moths, she took a sniff of a smell that was attractive to flies, which is rotten meat. 
I also sniffed it, and didn't think it was half bad - but I'm a banhauser. I guess the flies have that banhauser gene too, which must be what makes them such good scavengers.
Here's some bee anatomy for you guys:
Oh, and there was also an art exhibition of sorts about butterflies in the "palm house". Here's one which is oddly enough called the "Giant Owl" (clearly due to its eye-like pattern on its wing), which looks like it would enjoy the mixed drinks I have been neglecting to post on my blog recently, because it got dubbed "the drunkard" here.
What else is there to talk about? There's the pond I mentioned earlier, of course.
There were some boats for hire too, so I took the grindette around the pond for a bit. They had rowing boats and pedal boats, and Primrose preferred the pedal boats - and so did everyone else, there wasn't a single rowing boat in use. On one of my earlier trips, I remember that rowing boats were all they had.
The boats were all named after plants, fittingly. Except for ours, apparently, it was completely blank. I guess we truly got a Troll-boat.
Also, we had some visitors... who were even willing to take some of the leftover crumbs from our picnic earlier. I know, Prim, you just "accidentally" dropped those in there.
Ah, and some more questionable translations on those safety instructions:
Maybe our next Troll Challenge will involve renting two boats and seeing who can take the quickest lap around the pond?
I think we should take the row boats next time, though - because someone has to.
In conclusion, it was a very enjoyable day, much better than I expected, honestly. And look, it even turned out that I wasn't the only squirrel over there. 
