Bobby Fischer and Footie

Greetings, gentle readers.

Oh , but there are enterprises of great pitch and moment afoot and yet verily shall I dodge them and spend an entire blog post rambling about things of no great importance.  I'll list my ablution song list at the close of this missal, for first, there is the introduction of my still-being developed party game.

Who doesn't respect Bobby Fischer for his wonderful and elegant chess-playing?  No-one worthy of mention, certainly.  The game of football is the most popular in the world by a ridiculously considerable margin, with the World Cup Finals watched by billions worldwide every four years.
So why not integrate the two interests?  Let me introduce you to the Fischer-Footie shooter game.

The Footie-Fischer Drinking Game

Pieces begin on the KR1 square and travel up the file to KR8, then across the rank to KB8 before descending that file through KB1, then KN1 through KN8 and so forth.  In American notation, this means starting on a1 and moving in a serpentine fashion through the files to h1.

Each player takes a turn and moves his or her piece the number of squares accordingly when an action occurs.

Watch a game of footie and drink when the following actions occur.

·         Throw - in = 1 space

·         Free kick = 1 space

·         Drop Ball = ALL players move one space.

·         Yellow Cards:

o   Professional Foul = 2 spaces

o   Deliberate Handball = 3 spaces

o   Delay of Game = 3 spaces

o   Over-celebration = 4 spaces

o   Kicking the ball away = 4 spaces

·         Red Card = 3 spaces

·         Goal = ALL players move one space.

·         Penalty Kick = 3 spaces

·         Corner kick = 1 space

·         Offside = 1 space

·         Handled pass-back by goalie = 1 space

·         Flash of unique skill = 3 spaces

·         Camera shot of celebrity or former player = 2 space

·         Shot of manager = 2 spaces

·         Injury stay in game (no stretcher) = 1 space

·         Injury stay in game (stretcher) = 2 space

·         Injury taken out of game = 3 spaces

·         Substitutions

o   Current player = 1^st digit of player’s jersey number coming off pitch

o   Next player: = 2^nd digit of player’s jersey subbing on

·         Goal Kicks:

o   Within goaltender’s half = 1 space

o   Across the halfway line = 2 spaces

·         Goal disallowed = 3 spaces

·         Interceptions (including tackles) = 1 space

·         Failed Goal Attempts:

o   Hits Post = 2 spaces

o   Hits Crossbar = 3 spaces

o   Cleared off the line by defender = 4 spaces

·         Fight = 3 spaces

Board

There are two types of board that we have – one that has different pieces that are specifically labelled and half-sized, and one that has generically-designated, full-size glasses to represent white and black.  We have cross-pollinated them so we are using all of the full-size pieces from the second board to act as pawns for the half-size capital pieces from the first board.

From the above illustration, you can see that all of the pawns are full-sized and designated black and white.  All of the capital pieces are filled with colour-coded fluids, as shown below.

Pieces

The collaboration of the prices to drinks can be done using any configuration, depending on the supplies at hand. 
As examples, we suggest these two possible configurations.

Zoroastrian:

All white figures, pawns included, are filled with a white fluid, such as a cream liqueur.  All black pieces are filled with a dark liquid, such as Jägermeister.

Pawns and Capitals:

White pawns are filled with a white liquid, black pawns are filled with a dark liquid, and capital pieces are filled with matching fluids.  This configuration has been shown above.

Potential Board Setups:

All players decide on a chess board setup as determined by a number from zero-nine, or from 1-10.  This can be done with a ten-sided die (decahedron), a calculator with a random number generator, a digital stopwatch with a millisecond feature (use the last digit), or any other machine that comes to hand.  When the digit is determined, configure the chessboard as appropriate.

Zero:

One:

Two:

Three:

Four:

Five:

Six:

Seven:

Eight:

Nine:

And that's enough hard work from me for one go.  Time for the musical roundup from the last washing up.

Musical Shower Roster

In order, here are the randomized songs from my last experience with my iPod Nano.

• All Hell for a Basement, by Big Sugar
• Little China Girl, by David Bowie
• South Yorkshire Mass Murderer, by the Manic Street Preachers
• Don't Stop Believing, by Journey
• The Monster Mash, by Bobby Pickett
• Rotterdam, by the Beautiful South
• St. Stephen, by the Grateful Dead
• Darling Pretty, by Mark Knopfler

And that should just about do it for me.  I shall return anon with all sorts of inflammatory things to say about sexual harassment, the militarization of mainstream films, and the American fetishization of firearms.

Until then, goodnight England and the colonies.

—mARKUS