Friday 12th September: David Steps on the Funky Gibbon Escalator!

Jaime was the starting Oya in the first game and opened the scoring by taking 12,000 points off David in the first hand and 13,000 off Noda in the second, however, those two players then took the next two hands and ended up in the black. The second game progressed in a similar fashion, with Jaime winning the first hand and fading thereafter.

Hidé, as cheerful as ever, turned up in time for the third game so we drew tiles and changed the seating arrangement. David moved into Noda's seat, Noda to Jaime's and Jaime to the empty chair, so Hidé parked himself in the seat that David had vacated.

The third game started off in similar fashion to the first two. It was augmented by David's attempt to teach Noda The Funky Gibbon. I'm not sure that the players on the other tables appreciated it very much, but a solid rendition of The Funky Gibbon beats the catawailings of enka any day of the week.

Do, do, do, the funky gibbon - funky gibbon!
We are here to show you how - oo-oo-oo!
Ooh, ooh, ooh, the funky gibbon - funky gibbon!
Just like you, so come on do the funky gibbon now!

Remarkably, the Funky Gibbon and the booze seemed rather to stimulate David's play than to prejudice it tonight. His gibbon continued to funk and his game continued to function. All David had to try and do was not screw up. He did screw up once, when he said "Ron" on Jaime's 2-Bamboo discard, which, Jaime - whose hand was Tempai - was quick to point out, had already been discarded by David. Since David had not turned over his hand no Chombo was extracted and David sheepishly went out with Tsumo on a 2-5-8-Bamboo wait a couple of tiles later.

Another outrageous hand was David's 5-Coin and 1-Characters two-head Riichi declaration during a conversation with Noda about the words "funky" and "gibbon". Noda was busy with his electronic dictionary (presumably not the one that he lost in China) and came up with "coward" as a definition of "funky". David noticed that his Riichi was not one of his better attempts since the other two 1-Character tiles had been discarded, one each by Hidé and Jaime. While David was laughing with Noda about his "bakarashii riichi" he picked up the 5-Coins that he needed to go out. Hidé had been holding on to the fourth, so it was the only tile available for David to go out on.

Another hand, another hit. This time, Hidé threw the 6-Bamboo and David, still Oya declared on a hidden Chinitsu which cost Hidé 24,000 points plus extras. A couple of hands later, just five tiles had been discarded when Noda threw a South tile and this time Hidé declared "Ron" and revealed Kokushimusou - a shiver ran down David's spine because his hand was Tempai and he would have thrown any tile but the one he needed as he was feeling lucky. Hidé had wanted precisely that to happen, so yes, David was lucky - lucky to relinquish the Oya without having lost any loot to Hidé.

At some stage during the third game Hidé's Mrs showed up with a chum and it seemed that they were eager to head off to a party, which fell in with everybody else's plans to end the evening relatively early. David stayed resolutely subdued while the ladies were present tonight.

In the fourth and final game David made another Oya stand in the East round and then escaped lightly from as the penultimate South Oya by handing a modest 2,000 points to Hidé. Somehow or other Jaime ended up with an empty tray, owed David 20,000 points and had his Yakitori stuck on the table. Noda and Hide were both modestly down on the evening, David the only winner.

David +30, +31, +62, +77 = +200
===
Hide --, --, -24, +6 = -18
Noda +7, 0, -16, -13 = -22
Jaime -37, -31, -22, -70,* = -160

* Yakitori

David Hurley
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