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After a LONG hiatus during the pandemic shut down (none of us are spring chickens), we finally got the Friday night game group together on Saturday night. Is it just me, or does it seem many things have changed since the virus rolled into town?
One paragraph and I have strayed from the subject.😖 We have one of the players who now has significant vision issues. Playing Mexican Train ~ our old standby is no longer an option. The dominoes are not large and the dots are not only multi colored, but small. We are searching for a viable substitute game and enjoying the good company in the midst of the search.We seem to have found one substitute in a game my daughter introduced me to ~
The biggest obstacle of the game is deciding upon the currency of the evening. #1 Daughter learned by playing with $1 bills. They played 3 games with 8 players, so the winning pot will hold $24 at the most. Multiply that by the 8 players of their evening and if you won all 3 games you could come away with $72. BUT you put $9 into those three pots, so you actually won $63. HEY, I could make a math word problem out of this! #1 told me the friend who taught her would play one game with 3-$5 bills as your bet. Eight players--$15 each for the one pot--you could win $120 minus your $15 ante--$105. The winnings go up with the potential risk. You could also be out $15. As a post script after writing this, #1 Daughter told me the last time they played they had 14 players--$42 pot for the lucky winner with a mere $3 bet! The money changes hands over and over and the pot slowly grows as the game continues. Laughter, moaning & groaning & lots of smack talk are a side benefit!Luck and risk tolerance seem to be the name of this game. How much can you afford to lose without suffering? How good is your luck? If I had walked away from the game wondering how I would buy groceries for the week, I definitely exceeded my risk tolerance. Luck is just that luck. Oxford tells us luck is good things which happen to us by chance, not because of your own efforts or abilities.
HMMMM ~ luck sounds a great deal like grace. Grace is the free and unmerited favor of God as shown through the sacrifice of Jesus so that we might have life. There is one distinct difference in luck and grace. Luck rains on the just and unjust alike. Grace is available to only those who ask for it. This game of dice is all about luck--luck which comes or goes without reason. Grace, while also free, is only available to those who ask for it. You can't get luck by asking the dice to bring you luck or spitting on the them or holding your mouth in a certain way. (Side note--I DO NOT play with dice spitters!) You can be assured of receiving the free and unmerited favor of God by praying to receive it. The one sure bet in life will always be Jesus!
"For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith~
and this is not from ourselves,
it is a gift of God."
Ephesians 2:8
