A newsletter for Icehouse players

An Introduction by Dr Cool

Hey guys --[Ed.- "guys" here is used in the informal unisex sense, of course.]

This issue was supposed to be the post-tournament Hypo, but due to PR disabilities (i.e. no money), it's a little late. You who were at the tourney will no doubt have memories of those greuling games dragged painfully back to your consciousness. I once tried to run a marathon and I can tell you truly that there are parallels to the fun/endurance aspects of both events. As in previous post-tournament Hypos, we have included a table of icers' scores in this issue. I also should mention the great probability of more tournament changes next year, mostly having to do with a change of time and place -possibly coinciding with a game con instead of a sci-fi con (yes, pure genius is at work at Icehouse Games). You will find vague details inside, to which I welcome comments and suggestions.

Strategies which no doubt a few of you kidnappers have already discovered are included in this issue. Try 'em sometime. The "vulturing" technique is particularly evil. Other icers will hate you for it, and that's a good feeling (sorry, Kristin). "Parking" prisoners is also a technique which, given practice, will make you dangerous.

In other news:

- Stop by on a Tuesday night at Planet X (a beat coffee bar in College Park, MD) and you'll likely find some Icehouse action. Our favorite variation these days is Casino with kidnapping rules.

- My grandfather alerted me to the fact that some beer company (Miller, I think) is beta testing a new ice-brewed (whatever that means) beer, called Icehouse. You can be sure I'll get a taste of it, but I don't think it'll taste different from any other typical Uncle Sam watered down filtered recarbonated soda pop beer. Details next issue.

- ICEHOUSE IS IN THE GAMES 100 LIST! That's right. So hop on down to your magazine store and pick up a copy of Games. We're on page 67 in the Abstract Strategy section. Nice little picture, nice little writeup, and a nice little address. Free advertising! Drop me a note of congrats sometime. I deserve it.

- A roving Icehouse event is preparing to be staged at EveCon. This is not a tournament, but it promises to be a blast for veterans and beginners. There will be lots-o-prizes, no centralized location, and no need for scheduling around other con thingies. The more icers that show up, the better; come if you can and bring your sets!

- My bro Frank is in Malibu beset by brush fires, so I'm gonna say hi to him. Hope I'm not wasting your time. Hi Frank! I can write to you using an Icehouse newsletter. Neat bit of nepotism, hub? (Frank is memorizing big words, so I hadta stick one in.) Don't kill yourself climbing on those frangible ocean cliffs, guy. See ya at Xmas.

Well that's about all the space I'm giving myself, so take care and don't stumble into an icehouse, unless it's mine, OK?

-- dr cool

TOURNAMENT #5 RESULTS AND FUTURE PLANNING

Well, we're back from another tourney. For those of us at Icehouse Games, the tournament was kind of bittersweet. The competition was fantastic, probably the best yet seen, but from a financial standpoint, it was a real disappointment. And since we really took a bath on this year's tourney, we've started rethinking our tournaments, and the second half of this article will discuss our initial ideas about next year's event. Feedback on this is greatly encouraged.

Results of the Fifth Tournament

This year's tournament was held in a very nice function space room of the Dulles Marriott. The new location was chosen not by us, but by WSFA (the Washington Science Fiction Association), the organization that runs Disclave, and for us, it seems to have been an unfortunate choice. The increased distance seems to have hurt our attendance. Instead of increasing over last year, we only had a total of 20 participants, and only 10 of these made the cut during Saturday's all day qualifying session.

However, on a more positive note, these 10 people were all EXTREMELY GOOD Icehouse players. Sunday's Ice-Offs competition was very intense and exciting, and there were some very close games. In the end, John White, Dan Russett, Paul King, and Allison Colbath went into the finals. Allison, a newcomer to our tournaments, was the odds-on favorite, with the highest rating in the Ice-Off by far, and she and Paul gave Dan a real run for the money. But in the end, Dan (who you may recall, was one of the Bates Discordians who won last year's tournament) narrowly edged out Allison (also from Bates) to win the tourney. This year's prize set was a gorgeous hand painted wood set in cosmic outer space stylings, done by Dawn Petrlik.

Also of note is this year's recipient of the coveted Cooler Than Ice award: Frank Cooper. He's come a long way from the obnoxious, distinctly uncool kid of the 2nd tourney, and really distinguished himself this year with his very cool way of playing. Congratulations, F. Scott!

The scoreboard above shows the details of the tournament. Kudos also goes to the following players who gave it a good shot but couldn't quite qualify: Donovan Chase, Robert Williams, Peter Wilkens, Michael Oliver, Jenna Culberson, and Dave Wendland. Better luck next time!

Ideas for the Sixth Tournament

Now for the bad news. We hate to bore you with our financial woes, but we're going to anyway, since they bear directly on what we can and cannot do at our annual tournament.

Renting hotel function space for three days to run a tournament is not cheap. Neither are the advertising costs, or the buttons and prizes we give out. However, in the past we've always managed to pay for this stuff out of the profits from registrations and T-shirt sales. This year, however, we fell way short. For whatever reason, the T-shirt sales were pitiful, and since we changed the way we collect registrations, we didn't get as much as we used to for that, either. All of this has 2 results: 1) we've got a great big pile of leftover T-shirts we're going to be pestering people to buy for a good long while, and 2) next year's tournament is going to have to be run differently.

How differently? Well, we don't know yet. But we've got a few ideas, and the point of this article is to let the Icehouse community in on our new concepts, to get their collective reaction, and to hopefully stimulate further thinking.

Next year's tournament will probably be a one-day event. The reason we've always stretched the tournament out over several days is to allow new players time to learn the game and get up to speed before starting the real competition. This was extremely important in the first few years, when very few people knew how to play, and when people would stream into our room saying "What's Icehouse?" But now, most of the people who stumble across our tournament (generally Disclave attendees) already know what Icehouse is and either don't care for the game or don't care for tournaments. So the practice tables and learning curve phase of the tournament are no longer needed and cost more than they are worth.

Also, we are considering the idea of holding our tournament at a venue other than Disclave. Since our tournament players are no longer casual con-goers drifting into a new and interesting activity, but instead are die-hard icers who often don't even notice the rest of the convention, there no longer seems to be any good reason to cling to the back of Disclave like one of those amorphous blobs that attacked Spock in that classic episode of Star Trek. Instead, we might have it at someone's house or on a college campus.

Magic players: Icehouse pieces make great life tokens, and 1 stash fits perfectly in one of those plastic card collector boxes (or at least that's what Eeyore tells us).

Such a change would cost a lot less, and would allow us to enjoy Disclave like we use to back in the days before Icehouse took over our lives. Another alternative is to hold it at a different convention, one which gives us the function space and let's us run as an official convention event. In particular, we are looking into moving the tournament to a gaming oriented convention, such as CastleCon. In this scenario, we wouldn't charge a registration fee, although all competitors would need to sign up for the con.

Thirdly, given the way our T-shirt sales struck out this year, we'll probably stop creating a new T-shirt every year, at least for the next few years. (After all, it may take us that long to get rid of our existing stock of tournament shirts.) It's a big financial gamble, and if we run the tournament at a venue that doesn't cost us as much money, we won't have to take that risk.

So there it is, these are our current thoughts. PLEASE write to us and let us know how you feel about it.

A HELPFUL TIP: HOT GLUE

Here's a quick tip, suggested by Peter Bagnell, for those of you with origami sets who haven't had the time or energy to fill them with aquarium gravel. Another great way of filling the cardboard pieces is hot melt glue. It's fast and easy to work with, it doesn't damage the paper when it's wet, and it doesn't shrivel up when it dries. Best of all when filled and dried, the pieces are wonderfully solid and heavy. The only negative we could think of is that it's kind of an expensive way to go, since you'll use up a lot of hot glue sticks to fill up a whole set.

Q Can I give another player a prisoner outright (i.e. can I just hand it to them)?

A No. To give someone a prisoner, you need to do it via the mechanisms provided in the standard Icehouse rules, i.e. over-icing them, or giving a piece away as a penalty. This means that someone who wants a prisoner may need to sacrifice a piece by playing it defensively in order to leave room from someone to over-ice them. And don't forget that faking a crash in order to give someone a prisoner is extremely uncool.

There is one exception to this. In the variation called Casino Icehouse, prisoners can be directly bought and sold.

The EveCon Roving Icehouse Event

What is it?

It's a chance for you to play Icehouse with a whole bunch of different people, without the stress and tension of a tournament. It will also be a great chance for new players to come and learn the game.

Where is it happening?

At EveCon 11, which will be held at the DoubletreeHotel, 300 Army/Navy Drive, Arlington Virginia (call (703) 892-4100 for directions).

When?

All day and evening, Saturday January 1st, 1994. (EveCon runs Friday thru Sunday.) The event could very well continue on Sunday... although we may not be there to watch.

What if I already have other plans?

Cancel 'em! There will be prizes! Lots of free prizes! How could you, a dedicated Icehouse fan miss an event like this?

Is there an entrance fee?

Well, indirectly, since you need to register for EveCon. If you want more information about all the great stuff you get with your EveCon registration - contact FanTek at 1607 Thomas Rd. Ft. Washington MD 20744. If you already know all about EveCon, save yourself $5 by registering before December 11th. If you miss pre-registration, the cost is $30 at the door.

Is there anything I should bring?

Yes, bring your Icehouse set. This is important. If there aren't enough people with Icehouse sets, the Roving Icehouse Event won't be all that roving.

Is there anything else you can tell me about this thing?

Sure. This is an event which does not have a required number of games to play. You can play one game or fifty games if you want. There will be no central playing area, although more icers may end up in one spot than in others, due to the clotting effect. The whole thing will be much more laid back and zany than a tourney, and should be a lot of fun, but in order for it to work, we need a lot of competitors, and we need for people to bring their sets. See yah there Frank!

STEALING A PRISONER

This strategy is a response to the 2-For- I Exchange. (For those of you who don't have a copy of Hypo #6 handy, the 2-For- I Exchange is a clever little strategy that works like this:

Buy a leftover Tourney T-shirt! Please! We've got lots of them left. They are 100% cotton, black with yellow printing. Frank got his as a graduation present and he loves it! NOW ON SALE! only $10 If you want one, just send us a check for $10, plus 50 cents tax If you live In Maryland, and $2.90 for shipping, Please Include your T-shirt size (M or XL).

If you have a 3 point prisoner, and a 3 pointer belonging to you is iced by a 1 pointer and a 3 pointer, you can sacrifice a I pointer of your own to completely un-ice the 3 pointer and end up with 2 prisoners when you started out with only one. To do this, you use the 3 point prisoner to over-ice your 3 pointer, and then position the other 3 point attacker so that the 2 pieces point at the same spot on the side of the defender, but from a safe distance. After this, you capture the I pointer, then drop one of your own I point pieces defensively in the path of the 2 attackers, and finally capture one of the 3 point attackers.)

Stealing a Prisoner is a special version of the strategy called Over-icem Interruptus. Here's how it works: when you see an opponent setting up a 2-For- I Exchange, get a I pointer into your hand. Then, when they reach for their own I pointer, quickly drop your I pointer into the spot your opponent has prepared. If you do it right, you'll get to capture the 3 pointer, and your opponent will have ended up trading a 3 point prisoner for a I point prisoner. And if you didn't have any prisoners of your own prior to this, doing this may let you really turn the tables.

KIDNAPPER STRATEGIES

Lately, we've been playing a lot using the Kidnapper variation, and here are some strategies that we have observed:

PARKING: Suppose you have 2 pieces left and you capture from someone who has 7. After the capture, you'll have 3 and your opponent will have 6, which means you can't make anymore captures. However, if you play the prisoner quickly, you'll be back down to 2 and you could make a second capture. The trick is to play the first prisoner in such a way that you can get it back again after you've captured and dispensed with the second prisoner. It turns out that this is easy. All you have to do is use the prisoner to over-ice one of your own pieces. We call this "parking" a piece. If you're fast, you may be able to get several prisoners parked on the playing field before your opponents are played out. Just be careful to keep at least one piece on your stash pad at all times; if you empty out your pad and everyone else does the same, the game will end and you won't be able to use any of your parked prisoners.

VULTURING: Now suppose you are down to your last piece, and you see that one of your opponents has 2 pieces left, with a third one parked. This person will be your victim, so pay close attention. As soon as your victim touches that parked piece, he or she will have 3 pieces (because a piece in your hand counts as being on your stash pad) and you can kidnap one of them. Since your victim will be busy concentrating on the parked piece, this will usually catch them totally off-guard.

INDIAN-GIVING: Lastly, suppose you are down to your last couple of pieces and you crash or make a false icehouse call. You can make the best of a bad situation if you give the prisoner to an opponent who has 3 times as many pieces left as you do (or will after they get your piece). As soon as you set the piece onto your opponent's pad, you can immediately recapture it. Furthermore, you may even be able to trade up in such a case. If the piece you are giving away is a measly little one pointer, then don't just take it back, go for a big fat 3 pointer. This can obviously be very useful... but don't use this as an excuse to crash intentionally. That would be uncool.