JBECK2'S DOG CHEATS AT CHECKERS - CARW2022
Continued Misadventures of Jbeck2 - the Newbie Geocacher
I heard that CARW2022 was just around the corner so I wanted to put together a puzzle cache for it. Organizer Extraordinaire Ka'anapali Spirit informed me that there were some rules to follow when posting CARW caches:
- The cache should not be buried under a pile of snow. (Apparenlty "UPS" doesn't mean what I thought it did)
- The cache container should not be completely filled with water. (Who knew!)
- The log should not be soggy, frozen into a block of ice, or completely decomposed and turned to slime. (I guess people write on these sometimes?)
- The cache COULD be attached to a tree, but should NOT be attached to a moving vehicle, or any sort of animal. (I guess that explains the lack of finds on a few of mine...)
- The cache should be hidden at least reasonably close to the final solved coordinates. (Who would think to look THERE on a JBeck2 cache?)
Since these rules pretty much exclude all of my other cache hides, this would be a new experience for me.
I attempted to follow these rules, and placed a small container "reasonably close" to the solved coordinates. I hung it about waist height on a tree with a VERY large trunk. (It didn't have any branches or bark though, so it was a bit hard to hang it).
Oh yeah, there was one other rule - something about a "board game" theme.
The first board game I pulled out of my closet was Checkers. I don't play it much, since I seem to have trouble finding opponents. (probably because of my intimidatingly vast technical skills)
I decided to try a test match against my dog.
Since she is in fact just a dog, I tried to use small words when explaining the rules of the game and the objective:
"We're going to create a geocache puzzle by playing checkers"...
"No, I DON'T know how"...
"Yes, you can have a treat after"...
"Ok, fine, two treats."...
"Here's how this works: I'll be red, you be black. We put our checkers on the board. The checkers move diagonally, and you can take someone elses checker by jumping over it"...
"No, I don't know how long this will take"...
"Ok fine - THREE treats - but that's all"...
"Ok, ok, we don't have to play until the end, we'll just play a bunch of turns, and whoever has the most checkers left wins."...
"Ok, if you win by at least two checkers, you can have a whole BAG of treats... But I'm warning you, as a human I am much MUCH smarter than you."...
"You're going to set up the board? But you're a dog!... Ok, fine, go ahead"...
After my dog set up the board, we began playing, and I was delighted that after 30 moves, my dog had not captured a single one of my checkers - but I noticed that no matter how I moved my checkers, I couldn't capture one of hers either!
I stopped the game and COUNTED the checkers.
Then I noticed something disturbing:
1 - She had intentionally placed my red checkers on the white squares, and hers on the black squares - preventing any piece from capturing another diagonally.
2 - She had given herself two more checkers at the start than I had - ensuring herself the win based on our agreement.
BUSTED!!!
BAD DOG!!!
"No, you can't still have a bag of treats! You cheated!"...
"You did too! You intentionally rigged the game."...
"No, never mind, I'll find some other way to make a puzzle for the coordinates of the cache."...
"What do you mean 'what coordinates?' the I wrote the decimal degrees coordinates to the cache in that notebook over there."...
"Hey! Come back here with that!!!!"
