Seventh of 10 games that made me the gamer I am 22-Sep-2006   Tel The games on this list are all there because in some way or other I have special memories of them. The next game on the list is there for an unusual reason. 5 years ago I was taken into hospital and after a month of tests and treatment, needed to have major stomach surgery. As a result of the surgery I had a huge scar running all the way down the middle of my stomach. Less then a week after the surgery some of the Piddinghoe crowd came to visit me in hospital. Knowing that I'd been stuck in hospital for over a month, they knew exactly how to cheer me up, they brought a couple of games in. One of the games was new to everyone. Limits is a push your luck card game. There are two decks of cards one just containing blank cards in the 5 Suits. In the second deck, each card displays a number for each suit. 5 cards from the first deck of dealt to each player, and the top card from the 2nd deck is revealed. Each player now places one of his hand face down in front of him. Players now take it in turns to play a card to the communal stack and then draw to replace. If they have 4 if a kind they can reveal their hand, draw 4 new cards and distributing their original hand, 2 each into the stack and draw pile, claiming 2 VPs. The idea of the game is that the allowed number of cards allowed in the stack for each suit is defined as the number on the control card for that suit plus 1 for each face down card of that colour. On their turn a player may challenge any of the other players last card. At this point the stack is examined to see if the challenged colour was over the allowed limit. The winner of the challenge gains positive VPs whilst the loser gains negative VPs. The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the game. Nothing too brain burning here, just a light entertaining little game. Back to the hospital. When everyone arrived I was fit enough to make my way to the common room. One of the obvious effects of recent stomach surgery is that any exertion on the stomach such as coughing or sneezing tends to hurt. One of the side effects of playing limits is that you tend to laugh. I found that these two things together weren't very comfortable. Hence I tried not to laugh - ha some chance. Everyone saw the problems I was having, and being true mates tried all the harder to make me laugh. The number of cards being played especially onto the low limit colours was verging on the ridiculous. Finally I lost it and couldn't stop laughing. My stomach felt as if it was on fire and I was convinced I was about to reopen my scar, but couldn't stop laughing for quite a while. As a game on its own rights Limits will never make it into any lists of my favourite games, but because of the circumstances, I now remember this as probably my favourite gaming experience. It managed almost single handedly to erase the gloom of the previous month. So there you have the 7th game in my list of 10 defining games. Limits - proving that in the right circumstances any game can become a favourite.      Comment by Paul   24-Sep-2006 Ah sweet gaming moments... Picture the scene. The limit for red is zero. "One red" "Two reds" "Three" "Make that four" Cue the sound of Tels sides splitting. Literally.        Comment by Boog   28-Sep-2006 I'm not quite sure what we'd have done if Tel actually had started bleeding heavily, thankfully we didn't find out. I do know that I was in almost as much pain as Tel was from laughing so hard. I never play Limits now without remembering my initial game of it.