Valerie Putman: I’m a numbers junkie

When I was a student, I always needed to know my scores.  As a professor, I can’t wait to see my students’ grades.  At the gym I keep a notebook recording exactly how long I was on the elliptical machine (30 minutes today at 7 resistance and 5 incline, plus an extra 10 minutes on the treadmill at 5.5 mph), how many pounds I’m curling (finally completed a second set at 15 lbs today), and how many laps I swam (64 laps = 1 mile).  Would it come as any surprise, then, that this spills over to games as well?

I can’t stand games where you don’t score until the end.  I understand that it’s easier in Ticket to Ride, but I want to see my standing at all times!

Despite my obsession with keeping track of everything, I’m terrible at it.  I would give up a lot of skills (like my double-jointed elbows, for example) to be able to count cards.

Bring on the math.  I really enjoyed Just 4 Fun when I played it this summer.  (You combine up to 4 cards to match a value on the board in order to play a piece.)

One of my favorite solitary past times is doing logic puzzles.  I got bored of Sudoku puzzles pretty fast, but almost every night before I go to sleep I work on pixel puzzles (also called paint-by-numbers).

My favorite geek lists are the ones created by stats geeks.  When I was a kid I wanted to be a statistician when I grew up.  It’s not my full time job, but I do teach a stats class.

Tichu Puzzle
Speaking of numbers, I’ve been writing this column for nearly 100 weeks now.  (Hey, that means this website has been running for nearly 100 weeks now!) As long as there are new games coming out, I’ll have new things to blog about.  But I am in the mood for something different.  Have you ever seen the Bridge puzzles in the newspaper?  They don’t make much sense to me, since I’m not a Bridge player, but Dave Arnott suggested a fun Tichu spin to it at the last Gathering that I’d like to run with for a few weeks (or longer if there’s interest).  Suppose that you have a fairly competent partner.  He calls Tichu when he has a good hand but he’s not calling it when you’re holding 3 of the Aces and the Dragon (without good reason).  You play with an odds left and evens right convention (passing the lower odd left or the lower even right when you pass two odds or two evens).  Now consider what you would pass if you were dealt this:

2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, Q, Q, K (note that you have 3, 5, 6, 7 in green)

Email what you would pass to your Partner, Left, and Right to my gmail account (putmanv at gmail dot com).  Use the subject line Tichu Puzzle 9/16 so that your emails get threaded and don’t fill up the front page of my inbox.  Next week (in addition to diving in to the Essen preview fun) I will post the most popular response and pose a new deal.

I’d rather be gaming (especially a game of Tichu right now!),
Valerie Putman

© 2007 Valerie Putman

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Comments:

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i’m assuming that you’ll tell us what you’d pass too?  Of course, what I’d pass will also somewhat depend on who the opponents (and partner) are because if I know some of their habits, it might change what I pass… Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Sep 16, 2007 at 07:32 AM | #

[quote=Valerie]"One of my favorite solitary past times is doing logic puzzles.  I got bored of Sudoku puzzles pretty fast, but almost every night before I go to sleep I work on pixel puzzles (also called paint-by-numbers).” Is this anything like Picross or “nonograms?” Lainie really got into those recently, too.  For about a month straight, she was hooked on the “Picross DS” game, for the Nintendo DS.  It’s a very nice implementation of the system, and has several hundred puzzles on the cart (plus more if you download them). Posted by Jon Theys on Sep 17, 2007 at 09:15 AM | #

So, are you a fan of Ricochet Robot as well?  I find logic puzzle fans really like that game. I, too, enjoy Pixel puzzles… I prefer the computerized ones as they’re easier to deal with (the “Picross” series for Gameboys come to mind… ) At least if I am right in assuming I know what you’re referring to… Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Sep 17, 2007 at 01:56 PM | #

Val’s great at Ricochet Robots...she is a force to be reckoned with in most games, but she’s especially swift in my experience, when it comes to that one. Meanwhile, I can’t be bothered to send in my Tichu answer.  Bridge columns work because nobody passes anybody anything in Bridge!  Also, the only reasonable approach to the crap you’ve dealt us here is to split the queens to your opponents, give your partner the 5 (when he or she complains later, say “It was worth 5 points, I thought you’d want to control it"), call “Tichu!” emphatically before the pass, and proceed to your inevitable victory. Posted by Josh Adelson on Sep 17, 2007 at 11:25 PM | #

I do play picross on the DS, but I have two issue with it.  1) The larger puzzles don’t all fit on the screen at once and I hate having to scroll around.  2) Even the hardest picross puzzles aren’t as hard as I like them.  I can nearly always finish them in about 30 minutes.  I’d rather have one that takes me a week or so of 30 minutes each evening to finish--the kind where I’m thrilled to figure out just one more square to color in! I do love puzzle games.  My favorites are Ricochet Robot, Carrousel, Vitrail, and Turbo Taxi. Posted by Valerie Putman on Sep 18, 2007 at 10:15 AM | #

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