Worst Chess Openings

By Josh

I have already talked about the best openings for chess, now it's time to talk about the openings that will really mess you up. The side worse off will be white in these pictures.

First I will talk about the WORST OPENING OF ALL TIME.

This opening needs no explanation. This is the fastest way to mate. Use this opening if you want to lose fast.

I put this as the second worst because of it's uselessness

The reason why I think this is useless is that in the beginning you're trying to control the most squares, and the amount of squares controlled by you is increased by 2 and letting your opponent take all of the other squares. I played a game by myself using the analysis off to the right control my moves, the end result after that opening was this:

(Note: I didn't even try to finish because white was so hopeless)
Use this opening if you want your opponent to control the entire board.

I put this as the third worst because this opening literally depends on the opponent making a bad move

As this is a great opening for when you are playing games with a short timer, but playing casually this is a very bad idea. I played another game like in the previous one and this was the end result:

(Note: Yet again, I didn't try even try to finish because white was so hopeless)
This just goes to show how bad you can lose with this opening.

I hope you enjoyed my blog post on the worst chess openings!

My Birthday is Coming!

By Josh

My birthday is in a month, and I'm already excited! This year I'm going to be 13! We've already decided what my party is going to be like (more of an open house and no big theme), what flavor of cake it will be (Peanut Butter-Chocolate, again) and how many people will be invited. Some may think that I am getting excited too early, but in perspective to the stores that start preparing for Christmas 6 months early, me being excited a month early is no big deal. We have no idea what we're going to do for the day of my birthday.

Magic

By Jeremiah the 6th grader

I'm going to tell you this right off the bat, Magic is a really fun game (if you have good cards at least). I should talk about this before I jump into all the different cards. There are 5 different colors:
 White,
Blue,
Green, 
Red,
and Black,.
 They all have different strategies. White is "Get your health up super high, and then attack." Blue is  "Get your health up, attack a little, and then heal some more.'' Green is "Get some animals out there and heal during battle." Red And Black are " Get your Mana up, (I'll talk about Mana later) then: ATTACK!!! My deck is a mix of Red, White, and Black, Josh is all Green, and Dad is all Black.
All right, Mana: In this game Mana is what you use to cast spells and whatnot. You are going to need a lot of Mana no matter what color you are.
Next the different kinds of cards. First Creatures. They are your are your army (once you have enough on the battlefield).
Next, Enchantment - Aura. with these you can Enchant Creatures with awesome properties!
Next up: land. There are 2 kinds of land. Basic land (Mana), and Land that give you Mana. I have 4 cards that give me Mana. One that gives me Red And Black, one that gives me Red And White, one that gives me White And Black, and one that gives me all three!
Next up: Artifacts. Artifacts usually only cost three Mana each however, they give really cool benefits. last up: Instants
Instants can be casted at any time. My favorite Instant is called "Flesh to dust" It uses 2 black Mana and 3 Mana of any color. That may seem like a lot of Mana but you can "Destroy target creature. It can't be regenerated" The only problem is I only have two.

Diablo 3

By Jeremiah the 6th grader

In Diablo 3 I'm a Barbarian:


Josh is a Wizard:

And Dad is a Crusader:



 (Not our Actual guys)
You can also pick a Demon Hunter:


A Witch Doctor:


Or a Monk:


There are 5 Acts and there are 2 bosses, per Act. One about halfway through and the other one at the end of each act. The first Act took Josh, Dad, and I 3 days to complete! However the acts get shorter as you progress on. There are 7 different kinds of Attacks. All of which have 3 - 5 kinds of attacks (you don't get all of them until Character level 64 or so) Speaking of which there are 70 Character levels. At first you level up pretty fast but once you hit 66 It's really slow.

Comparing Minecraft Skeletons to Wither Skeletons

By Jeremiah the 6th grader

You may remember my older post: Comparing Minecraft Zombies to Zombie Pigman however, this week I'm Comparing Minecraft Skeletons to Wither Skeletons

 

                ⇧⇧⇧                                                   ⬆⬆⬆
This one is a Skeleton                          This one is a Wither Skeleton
The Skeleton can spawn in the Overworld
The Wither Skeleton can only spawn in the Nether (Unless spawned from an egg)
A Skeleton can also spawn in the Nether.
The Skeleton always spawns with a bow (rarely with Enchantments), However a Wither Skeleton always spawns with a Stone Sword with the Wither Effect (Poison)
If you can get 3 Wither Skeleton heads and 4 blocks of soul sand you can make a Wither: 

How to play Cribbage

By Josh, the 8th Grader

Items Required
Deck of Cards, Cribbage Board (you can use a piece of paper and tally marks but it's hard to keep track.
Amount of Players
2
How to Win
Be the first one to reach 121 points
How to Play
First, each player draws a card from the deck. The player with the lower card gets the first crib (we will talk about that later).
Each round consists of 4 parts

• Drawing
• Discarding
• Playing
• Scoring

Before we get into the game, I had better tell you how to score.

• Cards that add up to 15 are worth 2 points

Ex. 8 and 7 = a 15 because 7+8=15
(Note: K, Q and J are worth 10 each and an ace is worth 1)

• Two of a Kinds are worth 2

Ex. a 6 and a 6 is worth 2

• Three of a Kinds are worth 6

Ex. 3 6's are worth 6

• Four of a Kinds are worth 12

Ex. 4 6's are worth 12
(Note: 4 6's are not worth 20 because it's a four of a kind, a three of a kind and a two of a kind. They do not stack like that.)

• Straights are worth the amount of cards in the straight

An ace, a 2, and a 3 are worth 3 combined, but a 1 and a 2 don't count as 2

• Flushes are worth 4

Ex. An ace of hearts, a 4 of hearts, a 5 of hearts and an 8 of hearts is worth 4

• Nibs(AKA Nobs) is worth 2

If it is your crib and the cut card (will also talk about that later) is a Jack you get 2 points

• A GO is worth 1

Will talk about this later

• A 31 is worth 2

Will talk about this later

OK, so now that I have told you how to score, it's time to talk about playing.

Drawing
The person who's crib it is shuffles the deck. Then the other person grabs a card from the deck. This is the Cut Card. It is very important. Then the dealer deals 6 cards to each person. Make sure that your opponent does not see your cards. Now it is time for discarding.

Discarding
Each player discards two cards for the crib. You are both putting cards into the crib FACE DOWN. Now it is time for playing.

Playing
The player who is not the dealer/owner of the crib plays first, then the dealer, and you both take turns placing cards until a player cannot place a card without the cumulative value of the played cards going over 31 must say "GO!" and the person who played the last card has to keep playing until he/she too can't play a card without going over 31. Then the player that played the last card gets 1 point unless the total WAS 31, if that is so then that player gets 2 points! After the point(s) has been given the total value goes down to 0 and play continues until nobody has any cards left. Now it is time for scoring

Scoring
Now it is time to reveal the cards. First, we score the player who is not the dealer's hand. Then, the hand of the dealer. Then, the crib. Now, the dealer is the person who wasn't the dealer.

Play continues until someone gets to 121 points.

Skunks
A skunk is a win where your opponent had 91 points or under.
A double skunk is a win where your opponent had 61 points or under.

I hope you enjoy playing cribbage!

Erectors VS Lincoln Logs

By Jeremiah the 6th grader

Lincoln Logs

1. Highly durable (chewed on by a dog):
   
2. Smell good
3. Actually made by K'NEX
4. Can be found almost anywhere

Erectors

1. Compact
2. It's made by Meccano
3. It can do things
4. With enough pieces you can make anything you want

They both come in a variety of packs

Please vote (as a comment)which one you think is better.😊😁😀