micropul

Those of you who notice my double entendres will appreciate the great restraint I show by not commenting on the name of this game in relationship to the name of my blog. If you just want to play a quick little solitaire game, this is a great choice.


Although I'm gradually buying and playing all of the top-ranked abstracts, I haven't yet made it to micropul at number 60 (I'm still working on Aton at number 20). It's a print-and-play game which Secret Santa was kind enough to print and cut for me.

I didn't quite follow the rules the first or second time I read them, but half-way through a solitaire play they started to make sense. Of course then I realised I'd been following the wrong strategy - I was revealing all tiles in my supply when it's probably more valuable to leave them unrevealed.

I'll explain the scoring of the game above. See if you can follow this. I claimed (with a green dot) a group of 20 white micropul - 20 points. Also, a group of 20 black micropul, and a group of 14 white. As the groups are closed, i.e. cannot be further expanded, that's 54 points. I get two points for each face down tile in my supply (another 16), and one point for each face up tile in my hand (another 2). That's a score of 72 which the rules describe as "normal". Pah! Well, at least they didn't say I was a beginner. If I'd realised I could often make more points by leaving a tile face down than by playing it, I wouldn't have drawn so many. I'll know for next time.

Congratulations on the great idea, Santa!