I had some internet friends from out the country show up in town on Friday. So, on less than 24hours notice , I decided to throw them a party. Pulling together a party in such a short time proved to be a real challenge. If it was not for my good friend Melissa Meyer it wouldn't have been such a success. I used AOL instant messenger to contact Melissa at about midnight on Friday night and asked her for help. She, in turn, coaxed a bunch of our mutual friends to change their plans and show up for the party on very little notice. I also invited a couple of our neighbors as well as people from work at my new job.
Terry and I spent the day getting things ready and were just in time to have a large spread of food and drinks when guests began to arrive around 6pm. It was a huge success with at least twenty people who managed to make it. The theme of the evening was a game night. We set up a number of game tables and there were always one or two games going on at any given time. I also showed a few reels of 16mm in the theatre downstairs including one reel of "Beetlejuice" and all of "Lady and the Tramp" for Cole, our 5 year old next door neighbor.
I don't know if any of you have ever played four-way chess, but it's a lot of fun. It is ordinary chess, but played on an extended board that supports room for four sets of chess pieces. There are no changes to the rules. It's every man for himself and it is remarkable how different it is even though none of the rules have changed. The biggest difference, other than just the insane amount of real-estate and three players attacking you from all angles, is that if someone is put in check the other players on the board get to poach pieces of the player being threated.
We had two big games of 4-way chess, the first one was over rather quickly. I scored a suprise checkmate before I went down in flames. The second game was much more serious. I didn't see it happen but I heard about it. Apparently it ended up with nothing left but 4 kings and some pawns. This is truly remarkable because the game is fundamentally unbalanced. To have it come down to a finish like that is just amazing. Finally one player was able to promote a pawn to a queen and ended up winning the game.
Four way chess is such a fun social game that I actually have a custom four-way chess table in our sunroom. Terry painted it onto our game table. Here's a photograph of the dramatic action!
In the kitchen a bunch of people played Pictionary and a couple of other games. However, the big game of the night was a no-limit texas hold-em tournament. We had about 8 players total, and each one bought in for $10. I kicked an additional $20 into the pot to make it a little bigger. One or two people bought back in for a little bit more when they bust out. I finally got to use my 500 pice casino poker chip set I bought on Ebay. I let my son Alex play as well. He was doing real well, and so was I, when we took a break to re-organize the chips. At the break I had to stop playing to attend to some other things going on at the party and I gave Alex all of my remaining chips to play with.
The poker game ended up going until almost 2am. Alex and Melissa's husband Matt were the last two left standing. I missed some of the excitement, but apparently Alex went all-in a couple of times, and ended up knocking out a couple of adults. In the end Alex finally lost, but Matt was kind enough to share some of the pot with him. By that time Alex was one pretty tired kid, but he clearly had the time of his life.
Below is a picture or our great young poker player.
Yesterday Alex purchased a book on programming C and he seems very excited about picking up the family business. Today is clean-up day. And there's a lot of cleaning up to do! But, it was well worth it; and it was a great start to what I hope will be a long season of fun parties at our house this year. This Saturday I am hosting the Saturday Night Screening room, and then I will be flying out to San Jose for the Computer Game Developers conference. I hope to meet up with my friend John Oberschelp and do a little sight-seeing with my co-workers who have never been there.
Thanks to all of my friends who made the party such a huge success. I really appreciate that you dropped your plans and showed up on almost no notice. I had a great time and hope we can do it again soon!
Terry and I spent the day getting things ready and were just in time to have a large spread of food and drinks when guests began to arrive around 6pm. It was a huge success with at least twenty people who managed to make it. The theme of the evening was a game night. We set up a number of game tables and there were always one or two games going on at any given time. I also showed a few reels of 16mm in the theatre downstairs including one reel of "Beetlejuice" and all of "Lady and the Tramp" for Cole, our 5 year old next door neighbor.
I don't know if any of you have ever played four-way chess, but it's a lot of fun. It is ordinary chess, but played on an extended board that supports room for four sets of chess pieces. There are no changes to the rules. It's every man for himself and it is remarkable how different it is even though none of the rules have changed. The biggest difference, other than just the insane amount of real-estate and three players attacking you from all angles, is that if someone is put in check the other players on the board get to poach pieces of the player being threated.
We had two big games of 4-way chess, the first one was over rather quickly. I scored a suprise checkmate before I went down in flames. The second game was much more serious. I didn't see it happen but I heard about it. Apparently it ended up with nothing left but 4 kings and some pawns. This is truly remarkable because the game is fundamentally unbalanced. To have it come down to a finish like that is just amazing. Finally one player was able to promote a pawn to a queen and ended up winning the game.
Four way chess is such a fun social game that I actually have a custom four-way chess table in our sunroom. Terry painted it onto our game table. Here's a photograph of the dramatic action!
In the kitchen a bunch of people played Pictionary and a couple of other games. However, the big game of the night was a no-limit texas hold-em tournament. We had about 8 players total, and each one bought in for $10. I kicked an additional $20 into the pot to make it a little bigger. One or two people bought back in for a little bit more when they bust out. I finally got to use my 500 pice casino poker chip set I bought on Ebay. I let my son Alex play as well. He was doing real well, and so was I, when we took a break to re-organize the chips. At the break I had to stop playing to attend to some other things going on at the party and I gave Alex all of my remaining chips to play with.
The poker game ended up going until almost 2am. Alex and Melissa's husband Matt were the last two left standing. I missed some of the excitement, but apparently Alex went all-in a couple of times, and ended up knocking out a couple of adults. In the end Alex finally lost, but Matt was kind enough to share some of the pot with him. By that time Alex was one pretty tired kid, but he clearly had the time of his life.
Below is a picture or our great young poker player.
Yesterday Alex purchased a book on programming C and he seems very excited about picking up the family business. Today is clean-up day. And there's a lot of cleaning up to do! But, it was well worth it; and it was a great start to what I hope will be a long season of fun parties at our house this year. This Saturday I am hosting the Saturday Night Screening room, and then I will be flying out to San Jose for the Computer Game Developers conference. I hope to meet up with my friend John Oberschelp and do a little sight-seeing with my co-workers who have never been there.
Thanks to all of my friends who made the party such a huge success. I really appreciate that you dropped your plans and showed up on almost no notice. I had a great time and hope we can do it again soon!
