French Open Round 6

Had some good hands -- hand 2 I had three kongs out, and hand 7 (which wasn't finished before time ran out) I had two kongs; alas, my opponents knew how to play defense. Another second place finish, another two points. Ended up with 10 (out of a theoretical maximum of 24), and maintained 29th place.

Online French Open Round 5

I think I only won one hand this round, but we had a player on a roll, and although the other two also won a hand or two, they were the ones who were feeding. So -- second place at the table for another two points, climbing back into 29th place.

Online French Open Round 4

I lost two mahjongs in this round, one when the person to my left claimed the same tile for mahjong, and one when I threw away a perfectly good mahjong self-picked (I missed a point, so thought it was only worth 7). Winning that hand probably wouldn't have got me out of third place, but it would have switched the top two players (since the eventual winner won that hand a couple picks later). One more point, so six total; now in 32nd place.

OFMC Hands part 1

I've put a PDF of the hands from the east round of Round 1 of the OFMC up here. The rest of the hands will be put up, eventually.

Online French Open Round 3

Finally. Managed to win three hands in a row, and didn't feed anybody. The 8th game was such that pretty much whoever won, won the table. It ended up a wall game (everybody holding on to 1, 2, and 4 dots) -- since I was in the lead, I win. Highlights: winning games 3-5. Lowlights: having the power (and therefore the internet connection) go out in the middle of game 6. Fortunately, I got back before the end of the hand; unfortunately, the bot had destroyed my hand in the meantime. Oh well.

Five points for the first day puts me right in the middle of the pack -- 28th out of 52 (the five-point players are at 24 through 30, so my tiebreaker score isn't great).

Online French Open Round 2

Ugh. Just ugh. No tiles whatever; often I would just need two or three from the start, and never ever ever get them. We only got through six hands, and I fed four of them. Ugh.

Online French Open Round 1

Not a great start -- fed a 15-point hand in the first game, fed a 9-point hand in the third. I won hands 6 (all pungs, two concealed, double 7s) and 8 (with 0:01 on the clock, all types and a dragon) to end up in 3rd place, for 1 point. (If the last hand was worth two more points, I would have had second, since the second-place player fed me that hand.) Tried for several pure straights and missed them all.

Password

CBS put out their newest game show last night, Million Dollar Password. Observations:

1. Shortest game ever. With celebrity plugs, and explaining the rules, and contestant chat, the first front game still only lasted nine minutes total. I like that they tried to level out celebrity skill by giving more-or-less equal chances with both, giving and receiving. I wish there was still competition with one-clue-at-a-time and both teams playing. Granted, that would require building an actual set.
2. Someone needs to shut the crowd up during timed rounds. No really. The one (or was there two?) times that a team got four out of five in the front game, the crowd drowned out their last five seconds leaving them with four out of five. And while we're talking about timers: all the previous incarnations of Password allowed the clue-giver to look at the first word before the clock started. Not only does that not happen here, but the clock starts a good second before the first word shows up.
3. If you can't get "Ohio" in three clues, you don't even deserve the $25,000.
4. The 1:30 timer in the bonus rounds will never come into play, I'm willing to bet money on that.
5. I agree with Eric's decision to go for the quarter-million; I thought he could have gotten them too. Granted the clue I came up with for "corner" was "street" and "drugstore", which is obvious going backwards, but probably also wouldn't have gotten me any money.
6. I wonder how many dry runs it took for them to realize that they were going to have to show the words for the last two spots or no one would ever try. Even double-or-nothing from $50K to $100K seems outrageous (to me, but I'm a coward), unless the celebrity and I are really clicking.
7. I thought Neil Patrick Harris showed himself to be an excellent Password player, so good for him. (Rachael Ray: not embarrassing, and who knows how she would have done in the bonus rounds.)