** IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT **

The HK team for Asia's most fun tournament - the Manila Spirits (Nov 22,23) - is in need of extra players. Contact Jake Anderson for more details.

** AUTUMNAL LEAGUE ROUND 8 REVIEW **

It was hard to tell who was the biggest winner of Autumnal League Round 8 - Blue Smurfs, Red(iculous) or Barrack Obama. With both Blue and Red teams scoring comfortable victories, the fiercest competition of the night was by way of the cheers, as each team attempted to out-bid each other in declaring their pre-game, pre-second half, post-time out and post-game support for Kenya's most famous descendent.

Black Rain, starting with an obvious advantage, lead off the night with a "TEAM OBAMA", before the Blue Smurfs quickly countered with a "YES WE CAN!". Not to be outdone over on the far field, Red(iculous) replied with a rousing "AUDACITY OF HOPE". And as for the White team, well, I'm not going to suggest that they were disappointed that their man didn't win the election, but they certainly were a tad quiet.

And the fun didn't stop there. The Blue Smurfs started strongly against Black Rain, jumping out to a 6-2 lead. Black snagged one back before the half, and, sensing the momentum would be theirs in the 2nd part of the game, attempted to steal the "YES WE CAN" cheer away from Blue. Adjudicating (correctly I might add) that "MY GRANDMA JUST DIED" was somewhat inappropriate, Kristin's team blue replied with a simple "BLUE SMURFS" and the second half was off and running. Presumably, Kristin had been inspired by Obama's ability to stay true to his original message over the course of the election, and felt that a return the to fundamentals of cheering - or as Sandy might put it, "doing business as usual" - was the key to success. And she was right, with the Blue Smurfs running out comfortable victors, polling 13 electoral college votes to Black Rain's 8.

Meanwhile, on Field Two, the White team were looking more and more like the Democrats of 2004. Lacking a candidate with any real chance of delivering them victory, they chose again to nominate Jake Anderson for Captain, with predictable results. Now, I'm not being critical. Jake's performance as captain in last night's loss was no worse than any of the other 90% of games in which he has captained, and lost. But seriously, what was white thinking? Hadn't they seen the writing on the wall? Did it not occur to them that Bee - the spitting image of Obama with his tall physique, darker tone and ability to draw millions of fans (albeit through Bollywood movies and not the internet) - was the man for the job. Evidently not, and Red(iculous) were quick to capitalize. Anybody checking the map on CNN.com and wondering were all the Red states went needs only to look right here in Hong Kong, as Rec(iculous) won their battle 13 provinces to 5.

Round 9 of Autumnal League gets under way at 9pm on Wednesday, 12th of November. See you there!