Gym Name, Skipped, GEORGIA

It’s official, everyone at the gym knows me as a name other than my real name. The manager, the smelly old lawyer, the dude with the torn t-shirts. I think I’ll just go with it, why bother.

I was skipped in line twice in one day. First in line at Duncan Donuts, some woman who came in a minute after I arrived shouted out her order as she pushed to the front of the line. Bitch. Second was waiting for a locker at the gym, dude behind me slips off to the side and forces his card in front of the attendants face. Fucker even glanced over at me and I just stared at him. And of course I got a locker 10 away from his. Wanted to stick my foot up his naked ass when he bent over but I didn’t want to get shit on my shoe.

And the main point of this post:

Rules of Georgia

The dice game we are addicted to at the corner bar is called Georgia. Don’t ask me why it’s called Georgia. There was a rumor that three business men from Georgia taught it to our bartender but that’s a bunch of shit (although G actually believed it). The real story is some lonely/bored/can’t get a date/beer guzzling handsome young man spent way to much time at a certain bar on North Ave. while he was in college. The bartenders taught this young man the game and they played many a night. Guess who the young man is yet? Anyway, some whacked out Canadian (internet’s still working swell, thank you) wanted me to write the rules down so he could teach his friends up north (do they even have dice in Canada?). So here it goes, but bare with me as I can play this game in my sleep (and do sometimes) so I’ll do the best I can.

You start with six dice, a dice cup, and a pen and paper. You can have as many people play as you wish but I would exclude the women who take 10 minute bathroom breaks every 30 minutes (depending on the number of people the game can take anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour and waiting for a broad to return from shitting/applying makeup can seem like an eternity). The standard buy in is $3 per person ($4 Canadian or two “tweenies” or whatever the slang is, I’m sure a certain someone will enlighten us in the comment section) but you can put in $5’s or $10’s, but keep in mind only one person wins so losing $3 is much easier on the budget. Once the pot is correct everyone rolls a die and the person with the highest roll starts the game (if there’s a tie only the people who tied it roll, the other suckers are out). On the score sheet you list everyone’s names across the top leaving plenty of room below them.

Getting to the actual game, the first person rolls all six dice. The method of scoring is as follows:

A five is 50 points
An ace is 100 points

Those are the only dice which by themselves count for any points.

3 twos is 200 points
3 threes is 300 points
3 fours is 400 points

Fives and sixes follow the same.

3 aces is 1,000 points
Any three pair rolled in one roll (all six dice in the cup) is 750
A straight (1-6) rolled in one roll (all six at once) is 1,250

I think the easiest way would be to go through some sample rolls. Say you have 1 ace, 2 twos, 2 threes, and a five. The rule in this situation is since there aren’t any three of a kinds you can only pull out one die, which would be the ace since it’s worth more than the five. The player would proceed to pick up the remaining five dice and roll again. The second roll is 3 threes, a five and a two. Since there is a three of a kind you would pull out all 3 threes as those are worth 300 points as opposed to the five (50 points) and two (no points). The new total is 400 points and counting.

I’ll back track a little bit. The goal is to score over 10,000 points but keep in mind that everyone else gets a turn to beat your score (going out with 10,300 points with a person right below you at 9,600 would not be wise as they’d need 750 points to beat you and take the pot). To “get on the board” or score your initial points you need at least 550 points on a roll. If you don’t get 550 you get a zero (or ass) marked on the score sheet. Zero’s don’t exactly hurt you (unless you get three in a row, then you owe the pot an additional dollar), but if everyone else scores it’s like loosing a turn. Sometimes a player can roll four or five times before getting 550, owing a dollar on the third, fourth, and fifth times. But once the player establishes a qualifying score the zero’s are “wiped out” and would need three in a row again to warrant paying the dollar again (ass money). Once a person established the 550 or above point score the new minimum is set at 350. In the sample roll above, if the player had already gotten on the board, he or she could stop with the 400 points being added to their score.

Assuming the above roll was for a player not on the board, they would roll the remaining two dice and get a three and a four (example). Special rule, matching three of a kind adds on to the original three of a kind score (a fourth three would add 300, fourth four would add 400, same if you roll 4 threes in one roll, would be 600 points), leaving this player with 700 points. At this point, not being on the board, a player would stop as they only have one non-qualifying/counting die (the four) and if they rolled again (one die) and got a two, four, or six they would receive zero points (all 700 would be wiped out).

A different variation, the last two dice came out a three and a one. This would give the player the 300 for the three and another 100 for the one, 800 total. Since all the dice count for points you’d be allowed to re-shake all the dice and add on to the 800 points. Same thing with a three and a five, all count (750) and you’d continue rolling. If 2 threes came out it would be an additional 300 for each three (400 first two rolls and 600 more = 1,000).

On the other side, starting with the original two shake 400 roll, if 2 twos were rolled the player would lose all the points as two’s aren’t worth anything unless you have three of them (same with fours and sixes).

In the above examples with the 3 threes you can adjust the scores for fours (400), fives (500) pretty easily.

If the player gets a straight or three pairs they can pick up all the dice and continue shaking.

When 3 aces are shaken in the same roll you’re left with a big decision, either roll the remaining dice and hope to get a five or an ace (only dice that won’t wipe out the 1,000 points you just rolled), but on the flip side, getting another ace gives you another 1,000 points and a 2,000 point roll is 20% of the game (and a damn good roll). Most people would shake again if there were three dice available, most wouldn’t with two dice left.

That’s about all I have for now, I’m sure I’ll think of other tips/pointers later, and I’m sure I left some stuff out so feel free to comment on this. It’s a really fun game, losing $3 isn’t bad but if you win it’s more about the gloating than taking in the $15 or so in winnings. And please feel free to trash talk, when I’m winning the roommate can be heard saying “ass, ass, ass” under her breath, or just loud enough for me to hear it.

I hope those wishy washy Canadians appreciate the two hours I spent writing this, but I guess it all works out as Andrew spent two hours getting the wireless internet connection to work at my house. Thanks again Andrew, hopefully my instructions are good enough, if not, call the Asian roommate.