A; what game do you like?
B; I like board games. I like chinese chess and draughts1.
A; I’ve never played Chinese chess before, but I’ve seen old men playing it in the street. It looks complicated.
B; it’s about as complicated as chess. The basic rule and moves are simple enough, but there are many strategies that players need to learn.
A; I like playing cards. I’m pretty good at poker2. Do you play cards?
B; I’m terrible at cards and so I never play games which involve gambling3, like poker. If I did, I’d lose all my money.
A; do you play bridge?
B: yes, I do. It’s hard to find four players though, so I don’t play very often. Do you know anyone who plays? If so, we could set up a game.
A: I can play quite well. I have a friend who likes playing, but she’s not very good at it. Shall I invite her to play?
B; sure, I have a friend who play fairly well. We should find out when our friends are free and arrange a game.
A; I’ll call my friend now. you call yours.
Intermediate
A: would you like to have a game of pool?
B: I’ve never tried it before, but I’d like to learn. Can you show me how to play? It looks very difficult.
A; the rules are quite simple, but learning to use the cue can be a real challenge. Stand like this and hold the end of the cue in one hand. Put the other hand on the table, behind the ball you want to hit. Like this.
B; like this?
A; this leg must be straight. That’s right. Put your head closer to the cue, so that you can see the exact direction that you will hit the ball in. that’s good.
B; now, I hit the white ball onto the other balls and try to hit them into the pockets, right?
A; yes, that’s right. You can see that there are 15 colored balls. Seven have stripes and seven have spots. The last ball is black.
B: we take it in turns to hit the white ball and try to hit one of our balls into the pockets, right? If I hit a stripe into a pocket first, I play strips, don’t i? we each play our balls-stripes or spots-and then we must hit the black ball into a pocket to win.
A; that’s right. You’ve obviously watched people play before. Ok. I’ll put all the balls into the correct starting positions and we can begin.
A: the balls have numbers on them. What does that mean?
B: that’s just for identification. We don’t need to worry about that when we are just playing for fun.
Words
Chinese chess Go cards poker play turn/go board game draughts/checkers bridge points score fun competition Mah Jong tiles pieces darts pool cue pocket dice counter toy money
Bet/gamble
