I had the great pleasure of meeting the designers of Parlay -- Paul and Jennifer Sturgis. They attended our East Tennessee Gamers session, and were eager to play a wide range of games. They brought along Parlay, their unique creation which combines Poker (in many of its varieties) with word games. They had no intention of shoving the game down our throats, but we were most interested in giving it a go.

I must admit that I was initially very skeptical. I am NOT a poker fan ... period. I just don't enjoy the game. I even politely warned Paul & Jennifer of this in advance. So, I entered the game with a heightened sense of apprehension.

Much to my amazement, I really enjoyed the game. One must form both poker hands and words in order to score points. As in many word games, the more letters in a word -- and the more "difficult" the letters -- the more points that can potentially be scored. So, using the difficult "J", "Z" and "Qu" can be handsomely rewarded! However, players must not only form words, but poker hands, too. The player who forms the best poker hand has his score doubled, and of the players who stuck-it-out and did not fold, only the player with the hightest overall score in a hand scores points. If you fold, you do score points for your base word, but NO bonuses. So, the game maintains that "hold 'em or fold 'em" tension present in Poker.

The game includes rules for several poker variations. We played several and they were all enjoyable.

The game really is quite good, and should appeal to the mainstream public. Card game enthusiasts will find much to like here, as will word game aficionados. We played with a group of gamers, and the game received "thumbs-up" from everyone involved.