one...two...three...guts!

"Quarter guts!"

That was probably my favorite call -- or maybe my favorite was "baseball, follow the queen, down." But this post is about guts. Only because I twote to a friend that I'd write a post about it. I didn't tell her that I'd write about baseball follow the queen down. This was, by the way, occasioned by my daughter's newfound interest in poker.

We're pretty much talking about the mid 1980's through the 1990's when my friends and I would get together at least once a week to play poker. Our card games were the kind of thing that would make serious players cringe. We played all sorts of crazy variants, with wild cards, cards that could become wild, or become tame in the middle of a hand. And we were loud and rambunctious. Usually it was in good fun, though I do recall one time when a Super Big Gulp went flying across the room.

We played for low stakes. Generally, a nickel ante. Five cents would buy more then than it does now, but even then it was a low ante. With a small ante like that, I could generally play for hours and end the evening up or down only a few dollars. I figured that, if I lost that was the price for an evening of entertainment. Cheaper than a movie. And if I won, all the better. Guts was the one game that would regularly have a higher ante. In the case of "quarter guts," it was twenty-five cents.

Guts was a simple game. Everyone was dealt three cards. There were no flushes or straights, so three aces was the high hand. We also never had wild cards, though I don't know why. Anyway, we would each look at our own hand, decide whether to stay in and then hold our cards in the air. The dealer would count, "One. Two. Three. Guts!" Those who were staying in would hold onto our cards. Those who were dropping would...drop. Of those who stayed, the high hand won the pot.* Everyone who stayed in and didn't win had to match the pot for the next round. We played round after round until only one person stayed in. That person won the pot and the game ended.

Now, if only one person stayed in in the first round,  the game ended pretty quickly. But if three or more people stayed in, the pot could grow -- a lot. When three people stayed in, the pot would double. When four stayed in, it would triple. Sometimes it would actually top $10, which was huge for our game. And I do recall one time when it actually topped $100. And during the earlier years, when we were still college students, that was big money.**

By the way, Vin, if you're reading this: I apologize for that stretch where, every game, I would use the bathroom, and turn that shelving unit around backwards. And I apologize for denying it was me when you called me out for it.

_________________________

*This leaves the question of what to do if the game was tied and the pot was not evenly divisible by the number of winners. I remember the first time I asked what would happen. The dealer picked one of the guys and said "Jon gets the extra nickel." That didn't sit well with me, since it was no longer a fair game, but one that gave Jon an unfair advantage. Yeah, I guess that was kind of petty of me. Anyway, I don't remember how we resolved it that first time -- or the next. I may have sat out a game. Eventually we fell into a standard rule that the extra nickel stays and gets added to the next pot.

**There was one particular guy who had less money than the rest of us. Or so it seemed. Let's call him "Goldman," after Oscar Goldman from The Six Million Dollar Man. Outside of our game, when someone had a nervous decision to make, it would be likened to "Goldman holding a pair of kings in guts with a $25 pot."

is she famous now?

Blair was looking through some information about the Overwatch League, and came across this video that was shot at an event that she took Asher to. She appears in it, starting at 2:43. Also, you can see Asher in one scene, playing Super Smash Bros (and beating the adults).

no frickin' clue...

Last night, Sharon's Overwatch team had a match that was broadcast on Twitch. It was part of the Owlet Tournament. In case you want to watch, the video is on Twitch.

The most salient facts? Sharon is an Off-Tank for Team Verdant. Their opponent was Gucci Gank. Oh, and they got their butts handed to them. It didn't help that one of the players had to leave during the match, and the replacement wasn't actually in a good state to play.

I tried watching, but I really had no frickin' clue what was going on. I was even more confused with this than when I tried watching a cricket match with a friend from England. Anyway, all those characters hopping around on the screen like mice? I had no idea what they were doing. Same with the dragons that sometimes appeared. I would have had no idea who was winning if not for the announcers. But other than that, they didn't really give me any sense of what was going on. Maybe if I was familiar with the game it would have made some sense to me.

I did feel surges of pride whenever I heard the announcers mention Sharon (of course, it was by her screen name, "Gamsha"). Even more so when they complimented the walls she built. I don't know why she was building walls, but since she was, I'm glad they were good walls.*

If I understand things correctly, Team Verdant will be going up against WisdomOW tomorrow night.

*Insert Trump/Mexico joke at your own peril.

nyit opens its new esports arena

Yesterday, Sharon Asher and I attended the ribbon cutting for the new eSports arena on NYIT's Westbury campus.

NYIT is one of the many colleges that, in recent years, have created video game teams, and Sharon has now seen the facilities at a number of them -- UC Berkeley and Columbia College (in Missouri) come to mind. NYIT's team was formed within the last couple of years. It was founded by Elieser Duran (class of 2017), who still runs the team -- cleverly dubbed the CyBears (in contrast to the school's traditional teams, which are the Bears). I'd also be remiss if I failed to note that the CyBears recently won the East Coast Conference's Overwatch championship

This CyBears' new arena includes a room off the library with 14 computers, and another room where spectators can watch the game onscreen. Duran did mention to me that there are plans for a bigger arena with forty computers.

Duran offered that Sharon can come back and see the facilities, and maybe interact with the student players at a future date.

mission continues at microsoft

Last night was the first of what we hope will be many regular events -- a special gaming event for veterans. I don't know all the details, but Ethan (I think Blair helped, but I'm not sure) hooked up members of The Mission Continues with employees of Microsoft's flagship store in Midtown Manhattan. Together they came up the get together, Two hours of gaming for the veterans of The Mission Continues in the private gaming room.

I came by at the end of the night (for the photo op, natch!), so I didn't get to experience the whole event. But when I got there, everyone was in a good mood, so I figure it was a success. The fact that they're talking about when to have the next such night is also a good sign.

Special thanks to Andres and Marcella at the Microsoft store, and Daniel at Mission Continues. My apologies if I'm omitting others who were a big part of this, but Ethan was more involved setting this up than I was, and he's in the middle of a writing assignment, so I don;t want to disturb him to ask.

sharon and yunhee's great adventure

The girls with Micah from Australia

First, an admission: I don't understand Overwatch. To me it's a bunch of blinky lights on a computer screen. But Sharon and her friend, Yunhee, love it. I'm not sure how long they've been playing it -- at some point they graduated from Minecraft. At this point they're on teams -- Sharon's the captain of her team, which means that she has to schedule practices and scrimmages (against other teams). And she's had to deal with unpleasant tasks like recommending to the coach that someone be removed from the team.

Yeah, video games are team activities with positions and everything. Sharon plays "off-tank." Other positions include "DPS," "healer" and "main tank." As with baseball or football, the different positions do different things. And they play their games, each player in his or her (but usually his) own locations. This is nothing like the videogames -- Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Galaxian -- that were around when I was younger and had to pay a quarter for every game. And it's all possible because of the internet.

And somehow this is getting to be a big time sport. It still has the fan friendliness of minor league baseball, but it's getting lots of coverage in the media.

Anyway, Sharon and Yunhee have been in tournaments at Microsoft's flagship store in Manhattan (and won some money at it). This past summer they were at a videogame camp in Missouri. But this past weekend they were in California for BlizzCon, which apparently has a heavy emphasis on Overwatch. And that was after spending the weekend before at TwitchCon.

With members of the San Francisco Shock
Note the girls are wearing jerseys for the New York Excelsior

At Twitchcon they were in computer-building contests (Sharon's team would have won if not for the fact that one of her teammates broke one of the parts), and got tours of Berkeley's e-sports* complex, and met with the coach and several players on the school's Overwatch team.

I don't quite know how it works, but somehow they became some kind of minor celebrities. Two cute teenage girls who are good at the game, and have the support and encouragement of their moms -- Blair was there as were Yunhee's parents. That attracted attention. By the time TwitchCon was over, they had been contacted by all sorts of big shots from the Overwatch world. They all wanted meet these two girl gamers. At BlizzCon the girls met players, coaches, general managers and owners, big-time streamers. And, of course, the President of Blizzard Entertainment. They were hobnobbing with the big shots, and have already gotten invitations to get the full VIP treatment next year.

computer-building contest

Funny thing -- maybe I shouldn't be thinking along these lines, but if we were still working with a certain red-shirted charity, we would have been giving them lots of great exposure. But, well, that's the way the game goes.

Anyway,  as a father I'm torn about where I hope this goes. Could Sharon turn pro? Could she parlay her abilities into a scholarship? I guess we'll see...

One other thing -- and this was bad for my diet -- the girls brought back sample boxes of the soon-to-be-released Lucio-Oh's cereal (from Kellogg's). It's sort of like Froot Loops or Apple Jack's, only vanilla-flavored.

*Yeah, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around "e-sports" as a concept being treated as a sport, not to mention the fact that major high-status schools offer scholarships in it.

ethan comments on rdr2

Ethan's third video for his Youtube channel.* The first two were cooking videos. This time, though, he turned his attention to the world of video games.

Rockstar Games is releasing Red Dead Redemption 2 this fall. By all accounts it's a game-changer -- I know Ethan has been looking forward to it for a while. So when Rockstar put out a Youtube video showing actual gameplay (with their commentary over it), he was all over the video.

For his video (above), Ethan added his comments -- generally observations about the gameplay. I won't spoil it by parphrasing, though I will say that this has upped his sense of anticipation. Once the game comes out, I doubt I'll hear much from him until after Thanksgiving.

*He made a prime rib for my birthday dinner. He and Sharon videotaped the process for a video -- which would become his third video. Now if they'd only edit the dang footage and upload it...

a few thoughts about hq

• The main host, Scott Rogowsky, is really frickin' annoying
• The other hosts are even more annoying
• When I first started playing, their schedule seemed more regular. Is the jumping around a bad sign? Or are they just experimenting?
• Someone said that it's really an elaborate exercise in data mining, and I'm giving them lots of information for very little money.
• The first question is always easy. A gimme. ANd yet there are always a few people who get it wrong. Are those people who don;t speak English? Do people's fingers slip? Or do the makers of the game program a few bots to go in and get eliminated quickly (so as to make real players feel better)?
• I have five friends on HQ. They are all people I know IRL. I also have five pending requests. But they're from names I don't recognize. And I can't find any way to ask "who are you?" Still, who goes onto HQ and sends friend requests to random strangers?
• After you make a choice, can you change it before the time runs out? Or is the first choice final. I wonder about this. But not enough to try it and possibly hurt my chances of winning a game.

UPDATE:

A friend emailed me to say that he is unfamiliar with HQ, and it would have been helpful for him (and any other readers) if I had given a little background.

Fair enough, though in my defense I will note that it can be a challenge to strike the proper balance. How much background to assume versus how much exposition to provide. Also, in case anyone wants more background than I have written below, here's the Wikipedia entry.

HQ is an online trivia game available for Android and Apple iOS devices. Gameplay is live, so you have to play when the game is being played.

The host presents a series of (usually 12) multiple choice questions. In order to win, you have to get every question right. The questions start out ridiculously easy, but they get harder as you go along. Winners split the prize money, which is usually $5,000, but has been as low as $1,000 and as high as $400,000. In my experience, winners usually get a few dollars each, but I did see one game where the winners each got over $8,000. That was a game with 15 questions and a $25,000 prize -- there were three winners. The one time I won, I got $1.29 -- and I did get the money, so it is legit.

Those are the basics. There are variations, and details that I'm not describing. PLay for yourself. But if you do go and download the app and sign up, please use my referral code, which is my last name. I'll get a free life if you do.

overwatch -- sharon wins

Sharon has been playing videogames for quite a while now. And she's good at it. Not world champion, sit and play for 48 hours straight, good. But good.

I think I first realized that when Sharon started playing MineCraft competitively. In fact, that was the topic of the first post I wrote for this blog. That post is here. Sharon and her friends did pretty well. Of course, she has since lost interest in Minecraft.* Right now her favorite seems to be Overwatch.

I'd be lying if I said I understood Overwatch -- sometimes I watch her and Asher play, and it just seems like a whole lot of flashing blinky lights and stuff. But apparently there is order to the chaos.

Last night, while Ethan and I were at Keith's watching a giallo, Sharon was at the Microsoft store in midtown Manhattan in an Overwatch tournament run by FlashOPs. She had played a week ago, and came in third. In that tournament, she and her friend Yunhee were teamed with a kid they didn't know,** and he was the weak link. But in last night's tournament, they teamed with their friend, Raghu, who's a notch or two better than they are. I keep hearing that he has platinum status -- whatever that means. So this time, they beat the Spicy Boiz who had won the week before.


*Someone hacked her account and changed her user name from KittyCream08 (or something similar) to GasThemJews (or something similar. She tried to change her name back, but Mojang wouldn't let her -- they had some kind of rules about the frequency of name changes. THat kind of soured her on it.

**The tournament requires teams of three. If you show up as a team of three that's fine. But if not, they start grouping people to make teams of three.

when good trivia questions go bad

One trivia question I've liked is:

Which state has the highest ratio of coastline to land border?

The expected answer is Hawaii, since it has coastline and no land borders, so the ratio is infinite. People often don't think about it because they picture a map of the 48 contiguous states.

But lately I've been wondering about the question. Technically, speaking, a finite number divided by zero is not infinite. It is undefined. If we defined it as infinite, the number system would break down (don't ask me where or how, as I forget).

Anyway, if Hawaii's ratio is undefined, then it seems that Hawaii doesn't have a ratio (or, at least, the ratio can't be said to be higher than the other states' ratios). Among the other 49 states, I assume the highest ratio is either Alaska's or Florida's. But I'm too lazy to check.

But asking the question, and insisting on a state other than Hawaii will just lead to arguments, Best to retire the question.

is there a glitch in trivia crack?

I don't know if anyone here is interested in Trivia Crack. I am. It has become my main smartphone-based time-waster.

Anyway, I've been noticing recently that the first choice seems to be correct more often than would be expected by raw chance. By way of background, for anyone who doesn't, and hasn't, played T-Crack, questions come with four choices.
Now, sometimes such perceptions can be off. So I decided to do a little checking. I will track how many times the right choice comes up in each of the four positions. To be clear, I will not always track this. If I'm on the bus without pen and paper, I don't want that to keep me from playing. But what I will do is explicitly decide, before the fact, that I will track results for a particular session. Put another way, I won't decide, after playing, that I will track the results for questions already asked. Doing that would introduce the possibility of me subconsciously biasing the results.
But if I only include results that come after I have made the explicit decision to track what happens in a particular session, and if I always include the results once I have made the decision, that should eliminate the possibility of self-deception.
So far, I have done this twice, for two games. My results are summarized in the table. In the two games I played, I had 39 questions. Of those, the first choice was correct 23 times. That's more than half.Now, I am not sure how significant 39 questions is as a sample size. But I think this is suggestive. Remember -- it's not as if I played these games, realized that the first choice was correct a lot and then saved the results. I decided before playing that I would track the results because I suspected that the first choice would come up a lot.
I will report back after I have a larger sample. I don't know that keeping the split by category matters, though it will be interesting to see if I can notice a difference. Right now, what I have does not suggest anything. At least not to me. But I realize I don't have enough enough data to make any strong conclusions.
If anyone else plays T-Crack, I'd be curious to know if you're seeing the same thing. Also, what platform you play on -- if this is some glitch in the software I wonder if it's unique to Android (my platform) or if it's a cross-platform issue.
Perhaps I shouldn't post this. If there is a glitch, then knowing that fact gives me a competitive advantage over those who don't know. Posting this makes it more likely that others will know, and more likely that it will get fixed.
So, just consider that I am possibly sacrificing my T-Crack performance in the name of science. Or whatever.

my first comic con

This past Sunday was a first for me: My first trip to a comic book convention. It shouldn't really surprise, since I've never been much of a comic book guy. I liked Archie and Richie Rich comics when I was a kid, but I was never much for superheroes.

But this was a Stack-Up event. The first ever Fort Hamilton ComicCon seemed like a perfect event to attend for Stack-Up. Stack-Up is based around video games instead of comic books, but there is lots of crossover from one aspect of geek culture to another. And this one, located in historic Fort Hamilton, was catering largely to a military crowd. Anyway, we (mostly Ethan and Blair) spread the word, handing out Stack-Up stickers and info cards, and tweeting pictures of vendors, staff and attendees holding up the cards,

Asher and the kids' friend, Nolan, took a class in light saber fighting, and Blair and the kids sat in on a solve-the-mystery game.

For me, the highlight was a screening of the 1979 cult classic, The Warriors, which was followed by a Q&A with David Harris, who played Cochise. Earlier, they had a screening of The Toxic Avenger and a Q&A with Dan Snow who played Cigar Face. I skipped that -- I saw TA years ago in grad school and couldn't stand it then.

We had fun at this comic con, though there was definitely room for improvement. The screening tent was too bright, so the screen was washed out. And, for what seemed like the longest time, we sat and watched the DVD's splash screen since no one thought to start the show. The various panel discussions were poorly attended and not well run.

Oh well, there's always next year...

tweeting from two places at once -- all for stack-up

By all appearances, at least to anyone who follows me on Twitter, I managed to be in two places at once today.

Sharon is in California at MineCon (as half of Team Meowsome). Blair is there with her, and has been using the opportunity to spread the word about Stack-Up. She's been doing that by talking to people about the organization, and tweeting about it. In many cases she's been getting people to pose for pictures with Stack-Up stickers, and the Tweeting the pictures. And SU leadership seems to love it. They've been praising me for all this great work. The catch, of course, is that it's not my work. Blair has been tweeting under my name since she doesn't have a Twitter account of her own. So, essentially, I'm getting credit for her work. If you ask her, she'll explain that she doesn't care who gets the credit. She's a "policy wonk" as she puts it. Her mantra is that you can get a whole lot done if you don't care who gets the credit. But let me state for the record that she's the one doing killing it on behalf of Stack-Up out in California. The people in charge of Stack-Up should know that.

So, while Blair and Sharon are out at Minecraft, what have I been doing?

Today there was a Stack-Up fundraiser in New Jersey. So Ethan, Asher and I headed down to South Amboy to be part of the Stack-Up contingent. I twote from there, but I wasn't nearly as prolific as Blair. Tweeting is a medium that I still have to gain my comfort level with.

But since I was tweeting from New Jersey while Blair was tweeting (as me) from California, I managed the impossible.

i tried virtual reality

I'm not much of a gamer. These days, pretty much the only video game I play is Trivia Crack. Yeah,

years ago I liked arcade games -- Dig Dug, Tempest, Qix. But those games are a far cry from the amazingly intricate worlds in today's video games.

That being the case, I'm hardly the perfect test subject for a new virtual reality console. But Sony was demonstrating the Playstation VR (which is scheduled for October release) at a GameStop in Hazlet, NJ. So off I went with the kids...

I should note that this was also being promoted by the Northern New Jersey chapter of Stack-Up.org, a charity we're involved with that supports the military and veterans through love of video games.

So how was the PS VR? In some ways, it was amazing. With the visor on, it really looked and sounded like I was in the virtual world of the game. I was playing Battlezone, which is loosely based on the old Atari arcade game of the same title. Of course, the graphics were snazzier -- even putting aside the VR angle. But seriously. You could look up, down, behind you...wherever you looked the image seamlessly adjusted. I was totally blown away.

There is, however, the issue of nausea -- one of the reason I never got into the POV games. I remember trying Doom about twenty years ago, and it literally made me nauseous. I've read explanations. Apparently it has to do with the mixed signals the brain gets. Some signals say you're sitting still while others say you're moving. This somehow confuses the brain, so you have to yack. Sounds plausible. With this I didn't get sick while I was playing, but almost as soon as I got the mask off, I felt it. Let's just say that I won't be playing the PS VR again in this lifetime.

The kids loved it and were not bothered by nausea. Young constitutions, I guess. Of course, they also tried other games -- The Heist and Tetris. I am not looking forward to the fall when they start clamoring to get this.

support the tigercats' build

Please, everyone, give a five-star rating to Sharon's team's build.

Follow this link, then go to TigerCats' build (it's the second one down), rate it five stars and then submit your vote at the bottom.

You'll be making these kids happy.

Thanks.

why didn't they just write it down?

Does anyone remember the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer and Newman were playing a game of Risk? They had to store the board at Jerry's place because neither one trusted the other not to cheat if left alone with it.

There's a lot that I understand about the episode. As board games go, Risk can feel intense in a way that Candyland can't. Risk can bring out the worst in friends more efficiently than any other board game. I get that.

But there's one thing I don't get. There are 42 countries on the board. Couldn't they have simply written down a list of countries and indicated, for each one, who owned it and how many armies were on it,

Problem solved! I'm a genius!


EDIT: While we're at it, why would you play a board game with someone if you can't trust him not to cheat?

jet blue helps and the girls get fan art

I've already had a bunch of posts about Sharon and her MineCraft activities, including both her competitive play and the videos that she and Yunhee post on Youtube (as Team Meowsome),

Well, they're getting some love back from the viewing community, The graphics accompanying this post are samples of fan art that their subscribers have been emailing them. This is awesome beyond words.

As for the competition, it's hard for me to know how it's going. I asked Sharon, today, how it went and she, in disappointment, said that her team came in second in one of the games. As in, they came in first in the rest. And this was a letdown

I was actually kind of expecting a disappointing performance today. We were away for nthe past week, and only got home early this morning (via a redeye flight from Reno). The plan was to take a cab directly from the airport to the theatre. Under the best of circumstances, that's not exactly a plan for bringing out the best in a person.

And it was made worse by our flight leaving Reno an hour late. That meant cutting it really close. It was interesting to see Blair talking to the Jet Blue staff at the gate.She kept it light and conversational.

"We're really hoping that it'll be possible to pick up time. Our daughter has a competition in the morning, and she's a leader of the team, so she really has to be there."

"

Well, we'll certainly try. What does she compete in?"

"Minecraft. It's amazing. There are teams from all over the US and Canada in theatres..."

It sounds almost crazy, but it helped. There were two empty seats in the front row of the plane,

and as we descended the flight attendents told Blair and Sharon to take those seats so they could be the first off the plane. And we landed with enough time to spare, so they made it.

As a related aside, I will note that I have had really good experience with Jet Blue.

EDIT: Sharon's and Yunhee's Youtube channel is here.

excitement in a game i don't understand

I am at the theatre while Sharon competes in the second week of this season of Competitive Minecraft. It's exciting. It's heartstopping. Even though I don't understand the game.

The kids are in rows at their computers. They're animatedly shouting as they manipulate the images on their screen. And I watch the big screen, trying to follow the action. But I can't. The images look like a bunch of Leggos; I can't tell who is whom, or who's doing what. Some of the games show scoreboards, so I can see how they're doing. And sometimes there's a mesage indicating that this one killed that one or this team won (or lost) a capture point. Or something.

And yet the exvitement is infectious. So I'm on edge in a way that sports used to get me.
I gotta go. The next round is "Domination"

team meowsome's new video

Sharon and Yunhee (AKA Team Meowsome) have posted another Minecraft video. This one starts with about 3½ minutes of fails. Then they discuss one of their fans. Someone posted a video titled "Team Meowsome is Cancer," and declared them the worst Youtubers in the world. That's quite an honor, and one which actually got them a few more subscribers.

If you haven't yet, please subscribe to Team Meowsome.

into the world of competitive minecraft

Today began the second "season" of Superleague Gaming's competitive Minecraft. It's played in movie theaters across the US and Canada -- I'm not sure if it's played elsewhere. In the first season, Sharon Came in at 20th among more than 1700 players, and her team also did well, though I don't recall how well. Last season, I never went to the theatre to actually see what was going on. Today I went.

A bunch of tweens and tweens, all with their laptops, screaming and squeeling, and the big screen displaying the playing field like a TV showing a baseball game or rugby match. And most of the time I had no clue what was going on. Sharon's team, TigerCats, apparently did well. I know they won the final game ("Zombies"). But it was announced early on that today would be practice only -- Final scoring would only count starting with week two. I suppose that's an improvement over last season, when they announced after the fact that week one wouldn't count. That was because of technical problems that interfered with gameplay, but it disappointed us, since Sharon had done the best that day, and so had her team (I forget what name they used then).


And there were technical problems this time too. Apparently the wi-fi was laggy. And they ended a half hour early because someone outside the theatre was trying to hack into the computers that were being used to run the whole shebang.

And as surprised as I was to hear that, I suppose it makes sense. Somehow this is very competitive, with parents arguing over seating, and accusing kids of cheating.

Is this what Nadia's parents had to do?