My peculiar rules for my league

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Since I've been playing solitaire for many decades, I've evolved a number of game rules that have served me well over the years.  Naturally, they are peculiar to my own play, and may, or may not, be adaptable for any other solitaire league.  I'll go over many of them individually, starting with this post.

The 2 play rule (applying to 2 consecutive running plays):
Playing by myself, it's obvious that I know what the "next" offensive play is going to be.  That would seem to be an enormous advantage to the defense.  So I developed the "2 play rule" for running plays.  This rule only applies only when an offensive team runs 2 consecutive running plays, and is intended to prevent the defense from having that "unfair" advantage.  The rule is simple. "After a team calls a running play, on the following play - if a another running play - the defense must set up in exactly the same formation as they were on the prior play"  The idea here is to prevent the defense from concentrating players in an area to stop a particular type of running play.  In other words, the defense must maintain a defense intended to stop every running play that might possibly be called.  Note that this only applies to consecutive running plays, and not just consecutive plays.  If a pass play is called after a running play, then the consecutive string of running plays is broken, until the next running play is called (which starts a new string of running plays).

While this may seem disadvantageous to the defense, I've found, over the years, that it really is not.  Defensive formations - using the individual "turning" characteristic of the rookie bases I use - have evolved to even out the chances.  Whether or not a running play is successful depends more on the angles and power of the individual bases interacting at any point of the field.  And, as we all know, each field will have its own peculiar vibrational pattern, which acts on bases differently at different points.

Passing play rules will be discussed at a future date.

Last year I purchased, and began using, the Tudor 36X18 generic field.  Previously, and since the late 1960s, I had been using a similar size field, the old Model 600.  This was not battery powered, and ran off AC.  In fact, my first taste of 120V AC came as a result of trying to fix a broken switch without unplugging it.  This taught me, in no uncertain terms, to always unplug a device before trying to repair it.  Believe it or not, this board lasted from about 1967 (?) until the present day, and still works!  That's 50+ years!  What other electrical device has lasted that long?  It's amazing!  The new board is quite different, most notably in the weight, being light as a feather compared to the old one, and running off batteries.  It has its own unique peculiarities, of course, and has taken some getting used to, but I'm looking forward to an even better second season with it than the first.  Oddly, one of the differences that really has taken some getting accustomed to, has been the darker green of the new field.  You wouldn't think that would be even noticeable, but it has been

[Benoît Racette]

Really like the way you played solo. 

 

Benster from north of the border