We wanted to relax after a quite physical-intensive game, so we had decided to make some soccer passes in the garden. Our friend’s house contains an high electricity pole in the middle of the garden, and the mental enlightenment came up when one of us accidentally threw the ball against that pole.

“Why do not we create a game which mixes football passes with this pole?”, he said the birthday boy, and so it was, one minute later we had created the rules of this simple and funny game.

Only two objects are required to play this game:

• A pole, or a tree, in short, something which is thick and tall. Personally, I would not recommend a tree as pole though, because the repeating act of throwing a ball against its trunk, in the long run, it might ruin its bark
• Any kind of ball which does not break when kicked with the feet

The winner is the player who first gains at least 10 points.

You score points when you hit the pole with the ball. If the pole is hit from a distance greater than 3 meters, then you get 3 points, otherwise 1 point. The distance which allows to get 3 points can be modified by players at the beginning of a match.

You can approximately calculate the distance from the pole using as reference points some objects present in the place where you are playing.

The Pole Game is subdivided in rounds and every round is composed of turns: one for each player. The number of rounds is not defined and that depends only on the time needed for one of the players to gain at least 10 points.

To assign a turn to each player, thus decreeing a playing order, the rule is simple: starting from a random order, whoever kicks the pole first, starts first. This initial round has been called the choice round.

After the choice round has been finished, it starts the real game following by the established order. In a turn, a player can only kick the ball once and it must be kicked exactly from the same position wherein the previous player has thrown it. As soon as the ball hits or misses the pole, the turn of the next player starts.

When the new position makes the ball impossible to kick, you can can shift the ball a little with your feet. If the other players consider your shift too advantageous, you need to move the ball back to the original position and shift it again until an overall agreement is reached.

A little advice, be smart and kick the ball really hard! In this way, when it bounces backs after having kicked the pole, it takes unpredictable directions, putting the following player in difficulty!

As other amateur games, even this one has been subjected to variants during the time. Each of the ones shown below can be combined together without any particular problem.

• The match ends when all players have gained at least 10 points. This rule has the objective of creating a ranking among players, so a player has finished playing only when 10 or more points have been scored.
• If the ball stops too close to the pole, it will be easier for a player scoring points. To avoid this kind of case, a minimum distance can be set. When the ball goes beyond this allowed minimum distance, it must be positioned exactly at the minimum distance. This variant has been created with the purpose of having a more balanced match in terms of difficulty. To make the minimum distance always visible, one solution could be to draw a circle around the pole.
• The ball must not be kicked exactly from the same position wherein the previous player has thrown it. A player can immediately kick the ball as soon as it misses or hits the pole, making the entire game more rapid and fluid.
• If the pole is hit above a certain height, the points scored in that turn are doubled. In our case, since the pole is 6 meters high, we have decided to set the height threshold to 3 meters. This decision can be taken at the beginning of a match or during its progress.
• If the pole presents some anomalies on its surface, for example the presence of moss patches, a player can decide to aim at those anomalies to double the possible points scored in that turn. Before kicking the ball, the player must decree out loud the intent of hitting an anomaly, otherwise the points will not be doubled!

And that is all!

If you wish to save the rules of this game somewhere, I also provide a downloadable version both in English and Italian language.

Have fun playing this exciting game!

As first playful post, I have chosen a game which accompanied many of our summers at lake. I hope you can enjoy playing it with your loved ones the same way which entertained us.

If you wish to save these game’s rules somewhere, I also provide a downloadable version both in English and Italian language.

And now have fun reading about this exciting game!

SchiacciaSette, in English SmashSeven, is an amateur game which is typically played, especially during the Italian summer periods, in outdoor areas such as beaches, mountain meadows, gardens, and even in shallow waters near sea and lake shores.

To play this game, a light weight and aerodynamic ball is necessary. This kind of ball allows any player to partecipate without great difficulty since it makes passing and throwing actions much easier. It is good practice, when it is possible, to inflate the ball before the beginning of a match.

SchiacciaSette’s rules are quite simple.
Players are standing in circle and must use only two of the six volleyball skills to pass the ball to other players: jump sets and pass.
At the seven touch, the player with the ball can perform an attack, renamed smash in this case, towards another player to eliminate that player from the game.
The winner is the last player when all other players have been eliminated.

The first touch of the sequence must be announced out loud yelling the word: One. The player who forgets to pronounce that word is automatically out of game.
The following touches must not be announced out loud.
When the sequence of touches is interrupted for whatever reason: the ball hits a surface or it is intentionally stopped by a player, then the sequence must start again from scratch.

If the player attacked by a smash is able to block the ball in some way, the player who had performed the smash is eliminated.

When a player pronounces a number different from the word One during the sequence of touches, that player is eliminated.

When the ball does not touch any body part, but any other kind of surface, if requested by one of the players, the number associated to a failed touch must be said out loud. If the correct number cannot be remembered, a player is eliminated. But be careful, both the first and seventh touch must never be declared out loud, otherwise, even in that case, a player is eliminated.

This game requires at least two players in order to be played. There is not any restriction about the maximum number of players. The more they are involved, the longer a match will last.

Several variants of this game have been invented during the years and even I, along with my friends, have drawn up a new set of rules which, on one hand it enriches the game making the game funnier, while on the other hand, try to solve some ambiguities to make it more accurate but without excessively increasing its complexity.

An innovative variant

This variant has been created to overcome some blind spots which could lead to ambiguities or even cheating attitudes in the worst case. The additional rules have been defined and improved starting from the observations collected during various game matches played along the years.

Our own variant presents the following rules:

• You have more than one life, at least three. When the number of players is low, this rule lengthens considerably the duration of the game and at the same time makes the game funnier because you do not die at the first hit.

• When only two players are left, both of them are declared winners. This rule has been added because, over the time, the sequence of seven touches among two players had become very boring. Another possibility might be to reduce the sequence of touches from seven to five, or even three, but this option has never been seriously taken into consideration in our matches, although perfectly valid.

• You should not smash against the player who performs the sixth touch, called the setter, otherwise you lose one life. At first, this rule, already present in other variants, had been added as a metaphorical acknowledgment for a setter who lifts the ball, but over the time this rule has turned into a double-edged sword because setters started to physically throw themselves towards the seventh-touch players to make them lose one life. This rule though has been kept unchanged because it considerably enriches the game, forcing a player to decide, according to the context, whether to smash or otherwise drop the ball if a setter is going to act mischievously.

• A player cannot ask you the failed number after the beginning of your next action.

  If you decide to show the correct number with hands, without saying any word or else pronouncing a completely wrong number, you do not lose any life, because gestures supersede voice. At first, this rule seems really strange, but it has been added not to constantly stopping the conversations, since it this game has been used to socialize with other people as well.

• You can touch the ball more times without having to pass it to other players. This series of touches always counts as one touch. But be careful, you cannot perform this trick at the seventh touch, otherwise the sequence of touches is deemed invalid and you must start that again from scratch.
  At the seventh touch, you must smash as soon as you get the ball.

• If you are playing in shallow waters nearby shores, you cannot immerse yourself into the water to avoid being hit, neither partially nor completely. You cannot even swim away. If you do not respect these rules, you lose one of your life as a penalty.
  When you play in the water, you should stand on your feet as much as possible.
  You can jump into the water to avoid the ball though.

What an honour, this is my first post on a blog!

I opened up this blog to share my knowledge of multimedia and describe some of the projects I worked on.

At the same time, I’m going to write down posts about history and science.

I hope you will enjoy your time here! See you soon, stay tuned!