Task 58: Go to a games cafe and join a game

Until I started thinking about possible challenges to include, I hadn't realised there was such a thing as games cafes - and I certainly wasn't aware there was one in Richmond. I've always loved playing board games, as long as they don't require too much strategic thinking. For me the essence is fun with some thought required, so the outcome doesn't just depend on luck, but I don't have the patience for chess or games like Risk. Even draughts is so low on my list, I'd probably rather not play at all than have to settle for that. Anything that involves colour, words, general knowledge and imagination is what I go for. 

My brother is the complete opposite, and Peter isn't keen on board games at all - he much prefers watching sport on television - so I've always been rather short of people to play with, especially as most games need at least 4 players. The idea of a cafe full of people wanting to play seemed perfect, except that when I looked at the website of The Library Pot in Richmond, they all looked about 40 years younger than me. Although you're meant to be able to join in, I doubted I'd know any of the games they were likely to be playing and I'd stick out like a sore thumb. That's what made this a challenge.

With Peter about to settle down to watch the Wimbledon men's final, I decided the time was right to tackle it. The journey there couldn't have been easier - the 65 bus goes virtually door to door, and is free thanks to the wonderful 60+ travel card - and I was there in about 20 minutes:

Stepping inside, I felt I was entering a different world:

On the left, in the black cocktail dress, is Emily - one of the co-owners and the "hostess". I'd taken the precaution of ringing first, to check that there would definitely be enough people there for me to be able to join in without disrupting anyone's arrangements, and she recognised my voice when I arrived - though on reflection, it was probably more my age than my voice. She was immediately welcoming, introducing me to some groups and making me feel at ease. 

The upstairs is an attractive mixture of large open tables on the right and generous alcoves on the left, all festooned with fairy lights and with the slightly odd addition of an exercise bike in the middle:

The group on the left invited me to join them and as I watched them playing a game that looked like a combination of chess and Risk, I felt rather apprehensive: 

Fortunately it was clear it would have been difficult to join in at that stage and as the unwritten rule is that no-one is left on their own, the lovely Celia from Asturias in northern Spain immediately left the game to set up a new one with me and with Nick, who had also just arrived but has been coming every Sunday for the last few weeks. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of board and card games available, and for the £5 entry fee (waived on Tuesday nights for students and Richmond Card holders), you can stay there for hours without any obligation to have anything to eat or drink.

Nick suggested we could play 3-person chess (yikes!). I explained that although I could play chess, I wasn't keen on it, and I readily accepted Nick's ban on Monopoly. We left it to Celia, who is a regular, to choose something suitable and she selected Dobble. It's a sort of multi-layered Snap, which is curiously addictive. Evidently she had sussed my skill level accurately, albeit somewhat embarrassingly. I was reassured when I won the first game, but after that it was downhill the whole afternoon - but still great fun.

After 3 rounds of Dobble, we decided to be more ambitious and Celia chose Camel Up, a board game which she assured us was simple. To give us more room, Emily suggested we moved downstairs, which also had the advantage of being much cooler. There we were joined by Gareth, a larger than life Welshman with what I could have sworn was an Irish accent - and he was wearing a bright green t-shirt. He's a systems analyst who also runs photography courses and rides a motorbike, with a side car for his dog.

Before long Celia must have been regretting her choice of game, as both Nick and I struggled to grasp the rules. Why could camels move only singly in some cases and in a vertically stacked group in others, and what determined whether the vertical order (and therefore the chances of a particular camel winning) suddenly changed? Gareth, on other hand, had no problem and won hands down both times. I trailed way behind, still wondering whether the white camel might have been a better bet:

Nick had to move on as he was booked to take part in an ongoing marathon of an all-male game - interestingly nearly everyone in the cafe was male - and Mark immediately took his place. We switched to a game called Dixit, again chosen by Celia, which is apparently fairly new to the market. I was told it featured killer rabbits, which sounded tempting. I loved this one, as it involved collections of images and having to second-guess which one might be closest to what the lead player had in mind, allowing for the fact that he/she would be trying to mislead some but not all of us. For most of the game my blue rabbit was bouncing ahead, until Gareth and the others swept into the lead:

After two goes of that, Mark produced another new game which he'd brought with him, called Coup. It required, amongst other things, an ability to lie convincingly and to guess which of the other players might be lying. As usual I came last, but not for want of trying. After all, who would have guessed that as well as my two cards being Ambassadors, Celia also had one - and that it was Mark who was the fibber?  And as for the rugby-shaped Gareth being a Contessa...  I enjoyed it enormously and would love to play it again, but it does need at least 4 players.

By then it was time for me to go home, having stayed twice as long as I'd intended and knowing that Peter would be expecting me for a martini. Although alcohol is available at the Library Pot, most of us were having soft drinks - cardamom tea in my case. Meals are also available and while the men were downing hearty stews and the enviably slim Celia a massive burger and mountains of chips, I succumbed to a slice of chocolate fudge cake. The portion was enormous and it was delicious.

I went upstairs to pay my bill, wondering how they would have kept a note of what I'd had, since I hadn't signed for anything and I'd moved to different tables. Possibly there was a note behind the counter on what the old trout had consumed, but however it was done, in principle everything was noted by your first name. That meant Emily had to remember everyone's name, which she did apparently effortlessly - another friendly touch. 

As I was waiting for the payment to go through, she told me more about the Library Pot, which has only been around since early last year. As well as games (no video games allowed), it has a "meet-up" community with over 1,000 members, most of whom live locally. This offers a range of activities including long walks, which are free, skating, tennis and learning Japanese. If you're in your 20s or 30s, it's an excellent way of meeting new people and having fun.

My only hesitation about returning to the Library Pot is that my skill level is so low, I wouldn't want to spoil the experience for anyone else. Being so much older than all the others really doesn't matter - they simply take you as you are. I do fancy having another go at those killer rabbits...