Before and after

I would like to propose a combination of the Drop a word ....Add a word and Word Puzzle topics. Here, each entry is three-word version of what's called a "Before and after" on Wheel of Fortune, with any one or two of the words retained from the previous entry. Starting with the most recent entry in Word Puzzle,

tip off track

off hand over

(One word, "off" is retained from the previous three words.)

Note: If retaining two words from the previous entry, do not make the same phrase with them. E.g.

hand over there (Not good. Two retained words form the same phrase as before.)

hand held over (Good. The two retained words do not form the previous phrase "hand over".)

hand off broadway (You sure you don't want to always keep two? :)

strip poker hand

stone fireplace poker

(Feel free to keep two [If you always keep two, Richard, your winning will be obvious. :)], but I'm sure there must be some for which requiring keeping two would make it too difficult to continue.)

stone cold fusion

(You gave me a good laugh, MG! BTW, I suppose if anybody ever keeps all 3, that would deserve recognition.)

cold stone age

age old proverb

quiet old age

Christian, you've made a three-word phrase rather than two overlapping two-word phrases. (I.e. what's "quiet old"?) It's not what I had in mind when I started, but leave it to the creative types to take any idea in a new direction. I will leave to Dr. Lorentz to decide on scoring of a case like this.

quiet down town

town car loan

@MG I know what 'old age' is and I hope to have a quiet one. I retained two words, and not in the same phrase. So what are you talking about?
Not that it matters, have fun with your thread.

@Christian: "Not that it matters" to you apparently, but MG's point was that both "quiet old" and "old age" should both be phrases according to the original intent. I'm glad you "know what 'old age' is", but unfortunately I don't know what "quiet old" is.

Ah, my bad, sorry, old age :)

quite old age, it would seem. Hey, maybe that works?

fear not quite

@MarleysGhost did you skip Ed Collins' play (town car loan)?

town ship ping

(following Ed's play)

Now we have 2 branches. Nice!

I propose every player gets 1 point for using one of the previous words, 2 for using 2, etc. +1 point if words from the two branches are used (and we have a merge :)

ship sonar ping

Oops. yper, my mistake. Ignore "fear not quite".

ship shape shifter

in shape