How do you spice up your regular games?

[justin]

We are a group of 9 people playing the game weekly. Sometimes, the games can get predictable, since we know each other's weakness/strength quite well.

We continue to try to recruit new player with similar skill level to join the group. It helps to bring a different look and things get interesting for a while.

I also try to learn new tricks and change my games from time to time. Lately, we start thrashing talking, and start rivalry things to motivate and create upsets.

What do you guys do?

[Mag]

We sometimes play level doubles, but with mixed strategy. Or, if we're mixed, we play level doubles. That creates a lot of unexpected situations... Or doubles where one person on each side has to play with their left hand if they're right-handed and vice versa.

Another thing that can be quite fun (and frustrating) is to prohibit smashing. It really brings out the most of one's deceptive skills. That's really more of a drill, I guess.

The people I play regularly with have very bad temper, so I don't have to create rivalry or upsets. It comes naturally, and it can be very rewarding score-wise to exploit this... Angry players don't think very rationally! ;-)

[Q-man]

The thing that my friends and i always do is make like a BET. Like a bet for the loser to have to do like 20 push ups. Or maybe loser gotta treat the winner out to lunch or something. So the games would be play more seriosly and its a lot of fun that way too.