In the beginning there was man... well, a man... me. I was just a loner who loved dice. I have since I can remember. I always hated Monopoly, but I always waited for my turn to roll the dice. It was the dice I loved, the rolling. Why it would have such an impact I don't know. But it did. That was it for years.
It was only when I was around twenty that I found out dice can be much more than just an auxiliary to a board game. They can be used all by themselves for a multitude of dice only games. It started with Craps, the casino game. Well, I played what is known as Street Craps, a simplified version that can be played anywhere. The only problem with craps is that it's only really any fun if you're playing for money, and I never had much of that, still don't for that matter. I needed another dice game.
Rather than scour the internet for another dice game to play, I took took the audacious step and created one of my own. From what I can remember it was pretty bloody good even if I do say so myself. I can't for the life of me remember the rules. I posted it online but I can't find it anywhere. I do remember that I called it Toppleshteyner, which i believed to be Yiddish for dice. Whether that's true I don't know. I did use a rather janky translation site, so who knows. Me and the old family played a good few games of it and enjoyed it. But it was quickly forgot about. So it was lost to time.
Then I found Yahtzee, and I loved it. But it wasn't an obsession that arose instantly. I played it, on my own mainly, but when you don't have the luxury of a Yahtzee scoring app like we do now, scoring Yahtzee can be a massive pain in the rectum, especially when you don't even have the printed score sheets like I didn't. This means you either have to remember all the combinations or write them all down beforehand, so it was a massive faff. So, once again, it quickly got forgotten about.
And that was it for well over a decade. There were no more dice in my hands for a hell of a long time. That was until I bought myself some cheap one pound dice just for nostalgia's sake and stumbled across a brilliant Yahtzee scoring app that made the whole scoring process totally pain free (more on this app in a future post).
Once again, I played mostly by myself like a great big sad act, but it wasn't long before I got my son, Miles involved. We'd play a good few games over a beer (me, not Miles) and have a jolly good time. Then one fateful evening, Lee came to see his Uncy Bush (me) for a bit of a piss up. I showed him the way of the dice and he was hooked. He took his knowledge home to the rest of those reprobates I call my family and they became hooked too. Soon we were visting each others houses on a regular basis, something that had been a sporadic affair for a while, all because of Yahtzee. Something I will be forever grateful for. For a few weeks, that was us, getting together for a few casual games.
After a few weeks of casual play, competitiveness got the better of me so I thought I needed to ramp up the odds. I broached the subject of a yahtzee league and suggested we make it interesting and play for cash. It's always a nice incentive to win. Surprisingly, everyone was up for it, and we've never looked back.
The first league was a hotly contested affair. I don't wanna go into who took home the glory, it's well documented and I'm a sore loser so I don't want to open up old wounds. The first league was such a success we almost immediately dove straight in to the second league, which is still underway.
It was at some point during the second league that the Core Championship and Team Championship were born, out of necessity for various reasons, delays being the main culprit. The league had grown in size, and so did my illusions (or delusions) of grandeur. I didn't just want us to be a load of people that dabbled in Yahtzee, I wanted us to be a proper organisation. So, I prepared myself for any ridicule that might befall me as well as accusations of being a ponce and the BHO Yahtzee Organisation was born and public. To my surprise, there was very little ridicule, at least not to my face and everyone seemed to embrace it.
But it's not good enough to say you're an organisation and just leave it at that is it? If you're gonna do something, do it right... right? So I dove right into it. I compiled a set of standardised rules & regulations for the BHO, which is largely unnecessary if you know how to play and don't cheat, but it does lay out how the league and team championships work. I then created the blog on which you are reading this. It's a one stop shop for all things Yahtzee; Match summaries, tips, useful (hopefully) information, various dice based ramblings and hopefully just a bit of light hearted humour sprinkled throughout.
And that's pretty much where we are today. There's a lot more to come from the BHO, but patience is the key. Hopefully the more I interact with the wider world, the more people will be tempted to come along for the ride. Who knows, but what I do know is I'm going nowhere soon.
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