CHAMPIONS (sort of)

We had Board Game Wars as our night program a couple nights ago, which I thought would be incredibly boring. Nah. We played four games, and the winning cabin at each one would win 50 points. Or so they said. So we didn't win Jenga; some other cabin got 50 points. We didn't win Uno, but we did have the lowest value (counting up all the cards) at the end, so we got 50 along with the for-real winners. We got another 100, I think, from having a lot of full houses and a large straight in Yahtzee (sp?). But then...then came the Connect 4 Tournament. Runner-up gets 300 points, winner gets 1000. (Oh, btw, these are House Cup points.)

I had been preparing for this tournament, unknowingly, for a year. Last year I played Connect 4 for the first time since my early childhood at Excel English Academy, and there I refined my strategy as I plowed my way through classrooms full of 9- and 10-year olds. So I was ready for this one. It was a single elimination tournament with 8 cabins. We played a girls' cabin in Round 1; after a cat's game--the first I'd ever seen in Connect 4--we took advantage of an opponents' mistake and advanced. The next game, against fellow guys' cabin Chinook, pitted my 13-year-old con man with an Arkansas accent against the other cabin's counselor, Jimmy Cox. The game was even more intense than the first; finally, nearing the end, Jimmy made a tiny error and Dakota took full advantage. On to the finals...against arch-rival and House Cup-leading cabin Mojave. Mojave's representative: Adam Wallace, an awesome kid whose family lives on the camp. I took the reins for our side.

He played; I played. I played, then he played. We set traps, counter-traps, and counter-counter-traps. Each move was met with groans and cheers all around, but we were only paying attention to the board. It seemed that a cat's game was the only possible option. I made a play, hoping he wouldn't see my possible winning move. He didn't. I made the winning play, and the entire conservatory went into hysteria as Illinois, the perennial losers and almost the last-place cabin, leapt up into the top of the rankings with one drop of a Connect 4 piece. The five remaining campers and I shouted and hugged and enjoyed, for the first time, the thrill of victory rather than the agony of defeat.

Two weeks left at camp after Sunday!