I love the game of Washoes, a game that Tomme Arthur from the Lost Abbey introduced into the brewing community almost ten years ago. I’ve been known to play for hours, given the chance. Almost every small brewery along the west coast has a set of boards, and you see them fairly frequently at events, too. So I was thrilled to be invited to play in the first annual Russian River Invitational Washoe Tournament last night. My partner was Dave Keene, owner of the Toronado. We’ve played together on numerous occasions, but never in a tournament like this. There were nine teams playing in a round robin double elimination tournament. Dave and I — “Team Toronado” — managed to go undefeated through the first three rounds, earning ourselves a bye going into the finals. Since we hadn’t lost a game, the other team had to beat us twice in order to prevail. But we never gave them the chance, and won the first game in short order to win the tournament. What great fun. There definitely need to be more organized washoe tournaments.
To learn more about the rules of Washoes, check out Washoe Rules, a web page put up by Vinnie Cilurzo with the agreed-upon brewing community’s rules. The game exists in many variations around the country, and most likely originated somewhere in the Midwest, but this is the set of rules by which we played.
Dave Keene and me after our washoe victory.
Player order can dramatically impact the outcome of the game but I didn’t see anything in the linked instructions regarding how to determine which team goes first. If Team A goes first on the first toss it would reason that Team B would go first on the next. Is that right?
Chris, In theory, I suppose so, but in my experience it rarely makes much difference who starts each game since the order has the potential to change with each set of throws. Whichever team scores the most points in a given series of throws – or round – that team goes first in the next round. If there’s no score or if both teams scores the same, then the order simply stays the same as the previous round. It matters a lot at the end of the game, but not in the beginning.
Who starts a new game is usually a house rule. Sometimes it’s determined by throws, first in gets their choice. I’ve even seen Rochambeau used. Usually, if two teams are playing multiple games such as a best of three series, the winning team from the last games goes first, but I’m not even sure if that’s a hard and fast rule, or a house rule that’s just very common.
I played once in the back room of Toronado with Vinnie and Dave. I was terrible. But it was fun. I will need to make my own boards and become competition-worthy. Congratulations on your win!