The White Elephant

Alright fellas, I was going to wait until I officially hit 6K, but since I am off for the next week and a half, I thought it would be a good time to organize the White Elephant and get it started. Let me start with the rules so you can decide if you want to participate.

1. Each player will send me six good cigars. These should be cigars worth fighting over, so aim for the $10+ cigars.

2. I will divide the cigars into lots of two and assign a letter to each lot. I will tell each player which three letters represent the cigars they contributed so you don't pick your own cigars during play. Please don't tell anyone else which cigars are yours.

3. Players will be randomly placed in a play order. Since each person's cigars are divided into three pairs, there will be three rounds of play.

4. On your turn, you may reveal a new letter/pair of cigars or steal a lot that has already been revealed. I will keep track of all lots and who they currently belong to on a Google spreadsheet that you will all be able to view.

5. Each lot may be stolen a total of three times. After the third steal, the cigars are out of the game and belong to the last owner. 

6. If someone steals your lot, you get to take another turn immediately. You may choose to reveal another letter or steal a lot that has already been revealed, but you can not choose the lot that was just stolen from you. You may select a lot that was previously stolen from you if it has changed hands since being stolen from you. If you reveal a new letter, play resumes with the next person in the list.

7. The game ends when the last letter is revealed. 

If you are unfamiliar with White Elephants, don't worry. I'll prompt each person's turn and what they can do. It should be pretty easy and lots of fun. Like I said, I'll track everything in a spreadsheet to show who has what and what can still be stolen, what is out of play, etc. 

If you want to play, please don't be someone that doesn't check the forums very often. With the stealing, it can be your turn at any point after your first turn. If someone disappears for a few days, it can hold up the whole game until that turns occurs. I might have to make a ruling of a random letter pick for anyone that is MIA for more than a couple days to keep the game moving.

When the game ends, I'll wait a couple days to see if anyone is going to do any trading. We'll discuss this at the end if there is any interest. When all is said and done, I'll ship your picks back to you.

I would like to limit this to twelve(ish) players because even that many will take quite a while to get through. If the interest far exceeds this, I would have no problem with someone else setting up a second one to run concurrently to meet the demand.

I know I heard from several people that were interested when I brought this up earlier, but I'd like anyone that wants to play to officially sign up in this thread. Thanks!