100 Games 100 Plays

 

Recently I logged my 100th play of the card game Sea Salt & Paper, making it the 12th 16th (edit: previous blog post listed additional games) tabletop game that has reached the century mark. That got me wondering how many people have played even a single game 100 times. Then I thought, what if I had 100 plays of 100 games? In board games there is a stat called the H-Index, which is a measure of how many games you have played as many times as there are games in that group. For example, an H-Index of 5 means you have played 5 games at least 5 times. So I've decided to take on a long term project to try and achieve an H-Index of 100. 

To give you some understanding of just how lofty this goal is, I've been actively participating in the hobby for close to twenty years and my H-Index is just under 30. It's hard to say exactly what the number is because I've only been logging games for a couple of years. Thankfully most of my online plays were saved on BGA so I have those, but anything in person prior to September of 2022 isn't. This challenge is going to take a very long time, so I've added it as an item on my Bucket List page. I've also created a new page which shows the list. It's important enough to me that you'll notice a new tab at the top of the page to bring you to the list as well.

The biggest hurdle, aside from the shear number of hours it will require, is finding games that I'll want to play 100 times. They'll almost certainly be lighter games, most of which will be card based and online. The kids are getting to the ages where they can truly grasp the rules of lighter complexity hobby games, so my hope is to include them in this project if they are interested. Our middle child has been really into chess over the last couple of years, so I have no doubt that chess will be making the list soon. I have about 5 others that are not far off and nearly a dozen that are around the halfway point. 

I'm interested in seeing how long this will take. I don't plan on just grinding through okay games just because they play quickly or to add another notch to the post. All of the games that have hit 100 plays so far are ones that I really enjoy. I plan on keeping the list in descending order starting with my most played game, Star Realms, with over 1500 plays. When I hit an H-Index of 100, maybe I'll do a fun giveaway or something. Regardless, I look forward to the many, many plays that this project will bring.