Written by Joy Porter, AU student and CCE Fellow.
Domino players Ruth Lockhart (l) and Edward Echols (r) plot their next moves.
This week the Porter folks picked their two favorite games to be our games of the week. Unsurprisingly, dominoes garnered a sound majority and was selected as our first game of the week. Phase 10 was also selected as our game of the week, steadily gaining a following over the last few weeks.
Most of our attendees wanted to play dominoes, testing out the skills that they’ve honed over the last few weeks. Each player has their own strategy: Ms. Ruth plays aggressively, daring anyone to counter her bold moves; Ms. Annie is our shrewd strategist, knowing exactly which domino to play and when; Ms. Ruby plays with passion, investing herself in every move and game; and Mr. Edward plays with a laid-back and good-natured façade, catching his opponents by surprise with his cunning gameplay. All of our players are pretty evenly-matched, and this week, they seemed to win fairly evenly. I already heard talk of a rematch that will be happening soon, so I’ll be sure to update when we have our next dominoes championship.
Foreground, left to right: Mary Katherine Dean, Virginia Scoggins; Background, left to right: Edward Echols, Ruby Morgan, Charlotte Mattox, Jessica Davis
The other table was our Phase 10 group. For those who haven’t played before, Phase 10 is a game in which players are dealt a ten-card hand, with the object being to get a certain combination (such as four cards of the same number) before your opponents do. After completing a certain combination, you graduate to a new combination (or phase) that you must acquire before your opponents acquire theirs. The winner, then, is the first person who completes all ten of the game’s phases before his or her opponents do. We started playing Phase 10 just a few weeks ago, and it’s already become a big hit. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to finish our game this week, but Ms. Virginia was definitely the closest of all of us.
I think next week we’ll be playing Bingo, which everyone seemed really excited. I’ll be sure to check back in and post lots of pictures!
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