It's All Fun & Games Blogfest

Hello and welcome to my fellow Fun & Games bloggers!

My three games? Euchre, Oh, hell, and Yahtzee.

1) Euchre

Source: Wikipedia

I love playing cards, and have ever since my brother taught me to play poker when I was a little kid. When I was in college at Ohio State, I learned to play Euchre. It's been my favorite game ever since.

Euchre is a trump game, and is played with four players, who pair off in sets of two. The highest card is the jack of the selected trump suit, called the right bower, and the second highest card is the jack of the same color, the left bower. All other cards are ranked according to face value. The hand above would be the perfect, unbeatable hand for a round with spades as trump.

I've never been particularly great at the game, but I've always loved it. While I usually end up with a hand full of 9s (the lowest card in Euchre,) nothing beats picking up your cards and seeing those jacks and aces.

2) Oh, hell

Source: publicdomainpictures.net

I learned to play Oh, hell as a child, when I was about 12 years old. My mother's cousins were big card players, and I remember visiting them and learning to play Oh, hell. Even though I was only 12 and the other players were adults, I took to the game at once. It became a family joke as I was so serious about the game, I acted as if I was in Vegas playing high-stakes poker. Unfortunately, I didn't win, and my 12 year old self was not the least bit happy about that.

I don't take it seriously any more, but I still enjoy the game, which involves taking tricks. The object of the game is to bid the exact amount of tricks you think you will be able to take in each hand. I often play the game now with family members on holidays, and we always have a lot of laughs while playing.

3) Yahtzee

Source: Wikipedia

This is another game I've loved since childhood, and the picture above brings back wonderful memories. This is the original Yahtzee game that was sold back in 1956, and the set my family had when I was a kid looked just like this. We would bring the game with us to Martha's Vineyard each summer, and play while we sat around the table after a day at the beach. I loved rolling the dice in the little wooden container, and keeping track of my score with the little golf-style pencils. I have no idea what happened to this set, but I'd love to find it again.

So those are my games. It was fun to pick these, and I want to say thanks again to Alex J Cavanaugh for hosting this blogfest!

It's All Fun & Games Blogfest and The A to Z Followup

I just learned of the It's All Fun & Games Blogfest, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh, while visiting Bards & Prophets over the weekend. I'm glad I learned of it in time, as it seems like a great blogfest. The Fun & Games are tomorrow, June 6th, so there's still time to sign up if you want to participate.

Here is the description of the Blogfest from Alex's sign-up page:

"It’s All Fun & Games Blogfest, June 6, 2011 - list your three most favorite games and why. Board games, card games, RPG, video games, physical games, drinking games - even mind games! If it’s a game you enjoy playing, it’s worth sharing."

To sign up, visit Alex's page here. I'm looking forward to reading everyone's choices for their games. Thanks to Alex for hosting this fun event!!

Also, I'm thrilled to be co-hosting a follow-up to the April A-Z Challenge. Shannon at The Warrior Muse and Tina at Life is Good came up with the idea to challenge ourselves to visit all of the wonderful blogs we missed during the crazy days of April. I thought this was a fantastic idea, as my favorite part of participating in the April Challenge was meeting so many great bloggers. There were so many participants that I know I missed tons, so I'm excited to go back and catch up now.

There's no official start or end date for this challenge, but the intention was to make it a summer event. I know Shannon wrote that her goal was to work on this from June to September, and that sounds like a good plan to me. So I am looking forward to meeting many new bloggers over the summer!

I'm delighted to have the chance to co-host, as this is the first time I've ever hosted any type of blog event. I'm still figuring out how to add the linky to my site so I don't have the sign-up list here yet, but if you want to sign up, visit Shannon at The Warrior Muse. You can access the list of A-Z participants through the Tossing It Out page here.

Thanks again to Alex, Shannon, and Tina for these fun opportunities!