August 9, 2007 Session Report

A good bounceback week attendance-wise: With a total of 13 people, we had three games going on at once for most of the evening. I instituted a new system with some slips to record information on specific games (courtesy of Dave Fair, host of the GCOM-Damascus group and co-host at two other locations).

In attendance: Sarah, Val, Paul S., Gabe, Eric, Clayton, Doug H, John Locke (John is a regular at GCOM-Potomac who was attending at our location for the first time), Carlos (welcome back, Carlos!), Rodney, Nicole, Beth and myself were the group.

I brought a newly-purchased copy of Phoenicia and Paul, Val and Sarah joined me in a four-player game for its initial play. The game took close to two hours, but it should go faster once all players are familiar with the rules. Val took an early lead and pulled away to win with 34, while Sarah (27), John W (27) and Paul (26) were bunched closely together at the end, but nowhere close to Val.

Clayton and Eric squared off in a game of Lost Cities. The scores were reported as 194 to 94 in favor of Eric, a 100-point win. Thought Clayton would make it a bit closer.

Gabe, Carlos, Doug, John L and Rodney tackled Beowulf, another game that lasted for more than half the session. Final scores were reported as a tie between Gabe and Rodney at 30 apiece, followed by John L at 25, Doug at 23 then Carlos at 18.

Nicole and Beth had arrived and joined Clayton and Eric for Quiddler. Nicole was dominant, scoring 148 while Eric edged Beth for second, 126-124 and Clayton was not far behind at 117.

Clayton took a bit of a break and Rodney subbed to play several games in a row with Beth, Eric and Nicole. For Sale was won by Eric (82) ahead of Rodney (66), Beth (50) and Nicole (49). Then Incan Gold was played twice, Nicole winning the first game and then finishing a point behind Rodney in the second. I will not embarrass Beth and Eric by reciting their scores.

In the meantime, Doug joined Sarah, Val and myself for a four-player Blokus which Doug won. The results (remember in this one, low scores are best): Doug 4, John 11, Sarah 14 and Val 30. We also played a game of Coyote and the results were totally different (girls beat the boys) as I was out first, followed by Doug, then Sarah won the final head-to-head confrontation with Val.

The other four (John L, Gabe, Carlos and Paul S) were locked in a Duel of Ages game that unfortunately did not finish when the 9 o'clock witching hour arose. (Looking forward to the week after Labor Day when we return to the four hour sessions lasting until 10 PM!)

A couple of more quick fillers -- Sarah and Val played a couple of games of Blink, a game that Doug and I only watched as they were moving way too fast for us older guys to keep up with them. Doug then produced a really short card game called Pepper (every one starts with five cards and tries to get rid of them) which turned out to be the final game of the evening for Doug, Sarah, Val and myself. We finished two hands, first one won by Doug, second one by Val.

Recap: A total of 11 different games played, three more than once, 15-16 games in total (depending on how many games of Blink Sarah and Val worked in, as I really couldn't keep up!)

Hope everyone had a good time. I know I did.