Thursday, October 25, 2007

October 25, 2007 Session Report

This week we had a total of 7 in attendance, as Joan (Sarah's mom) was back for the second time to join Sarah, Paul, Eric, Stan, Clayton and myself. A total of 7 different games were played: Ingenious, Vegas Showdown, Lost Cities, Show Manager, Hoity Toity, Yinsh, and Category 5.

Details on some of the games: Started off with a three-player ingenious game that had an incredibly close finish. Eric looked like the early leader but stalled out when he couldn't push his worst color (blue) toward the end of the game. I managed to pull out the win (9) while Paul (8 then 9 for second worst color) nosed Eric (8 in two worst colors) for third.

By this time Clayton had arrived, and we played an old club favorite, Vegas Showdown. I snagged a Nightclub to take the early lead but midway through the game, an unusual situation developed when the price of the high-scoring Theater dropped as none of the four pre-requisite buildings, the Fancy Lounges, had appeared. I snapped up the Theater and saved up my money for the Fancy Lounge. Unfortunately, Paul outbid me for the two that came up and the game ended with the big square pile emptying while five rectangular buildings (and the two remaining Fancy Lounges) were yet to come out. The end result was a relatively low scoring game, won by Eric with 46, John 40, Paul 37 and Clayton 36.

Sarah and Joan arrived and occupied themselves with a two-player favorite, Lost Cities, won by Sarah. Then we all hooked up for a game of Show Manager (the precursor to Atlantic Star), and Stan joined in as Joan's mentor as she was new to the game. It turned out to be a real unusual game as the first completed show for everyone was the same -- the ballet -- meaning money was real tight since noone was able to borrow on that first completed show. Sarah and the Stan/Joan team seemed affected the most as both were forced to take several undesirable cards for free until a second show was completed. I had pinched my pennies early in the game, and this contributed to an eventual win as I finished second to Eric in NY and was first in Hamburg. The Stan/Joan team managed to finish second overall despite the early money troubles, and Sarah recovered to finish fourth, ahead of Clayton and Paul.

Eric and Stan split off to play several games of YINSH, and Eric reported besting Stan two games out of three. The other games played were a four-player Hoity Toity, another new game for Joan, who ended up doing quite well, leading the race around the board until the very end when Paul passed her and wound up with best collection to take the win. Sarah and I brought up the rear. Then Clayton joined the four of us for a few hands of Category 5, the late night staple, final scores were John 11 Paul 21 Sarah 34 Joan 48 Clayton 70 (three hands played).

A reminder that EuroQuest is just two weeks away, the pre-reg deadline is Nov. 1st. For details, go to http://euroquest.gamesclubofmd.org

Friday, October 19, 2007

October 18, 2007 Session Report

We had a total of eight gamers at this week's session: Doug, Paul, Beth, Nicole, Eric, Clayton, Sarah and myself. We played a total of five different games: Olympia 2000, Balderdash, Lost Cities, Spree, 6 Nimmt.

Started off with a four-player Olympia 2000 (Doug, Paul, Nicole and myself) and Doug's athletes won a close contest (by two points) which included a win by one of his handicapped athletes. Paul collected no laurels, something I haven't seen very often in this game. Next up was Balderdash, which Doug brought, and we started out with seven players, then Sarah joined as Nicole's partner, but two people dropped out near the end. I had eased into an early lead, then was caught by Beth, and finally both of us were surpassed by Doug who came on strongly to win.

Meanwhile Paul and Sarah played a very high scoring Lost Cities game, featuring one hand in which they both scored over 100 pts. Final scores (after four hands) were reported as 401 for Paul and 215 for Sarah. Not much defense in that one.

Nicole and Beth left early, leaving six of us to play the final two games of the evening. Doug introduced us to Spree, a Cheapass game, this time Doug had all the bad luck, and Sarah went on to win, stealing two Queens from Paul who had previously stolen them from Doug, the original owner. Paul was second and the rest of us were pretty far behind Sarah's winning score of over 150 points.

Final game was 6 Nimmt (Take 6), scores were Paul 40 Doug 53 John and Sarah 54 Eric 65 Clayton 71 -- low numbers are good, so this was another win for Paul.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

October 11, 2007 Session Report

We had another good week attendance-wise, including two first-timers to the club. Heather (friend of Gabe's) and Larry (who was picking up a Crokinole board from Stan) joined Paul, Gabe, Doug, Carlos, Nicole, Beth, Sarah, Eric, Stan and myself to bring the total attendance to 12 for the sessions. We played a series of different games as we spent most of the evening divided into two groups.

At one table, Gabe, Carlos, Paul and Doug played a four-player Tsuro which was won by Doug. There was a game of Incan Gold (and perhaps others) completed, don't have scoresheets or results -- sorry. Other games that I do have scores for are Ticket to Ride, which was won by Paul with 119 ahead of Carlos at 107, Gabe at 98, Sarah at 90 and Doug with 85. Paul also won a four-player Boomtown over Sarah, Gabe and Doug. Take 6 was a three-player, won by Paul ahead of Sarah and Doug. I also remember seeing a game of Target being played, afraid I may have missed others as I was busy playing games at the other table (need to do a better job of keeping track next time).

The other group started out as Nicole, Beth, Eric and myself. We played Megastar, a card game by Friedemann Friese with a records theme: Eric won by one point, 35 to 34, I came second with Nicole at 30, two points better than her mom. Next up was Qwirkle, and I drew just about all the right tiles and won a fairly decisive win ahead of Eric with Nicole once again in third. We then played R-Eco, and everyone but Nicole dumped, but this game wound up with the dumpers beating out the ecology-minded, and Eric got the last set of cards to secure the win. At this point, Beth and Nicole had to leave, and Eric and I were joined by Stan and Larry in playing Before the Wind, an engrossing card game I had introduced to the group the prior week. We didn't quite finish, but Eric appeared to be on his way to a win when we picked up the game just before closing time.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

October 4, 2007 Session Report

Despite the absence of a couple of "regular" attendees, attendance was still strong, at 9, and we had two games going on for most of the evening and one new attendee: Estefani (known as Teffy to her friends) who arrived with Val. Paul, Doug, Gabe, Eric, Sarah, Clayton and myself rounded out the list of attendees.

We played a total of eight different games: Olympia 2000, Bang, Lost Cities, Thebes, Before the Wind (first time play for this new game at the club), Mamma Mia, The Nacho Incident and the ever-popular Category 5.

Here's some details. Olympia 2000 was our quick 6 PM filler game while waiting for others to arrive. Final scores were John 14, Paul 10, Gabe 9 and Doug 7. Then we were joined by Sarah, Clayton and Eric for a full 7-player Bang using the extra cards from the Dodge City expansion. Doug played the role of the Sheriff and always seemed to have enough bullets and beers to make life difficult to those on the outlaw side of the equation. Clayton started shooting at me, then Sarah started shooting at Eric, both Eric and Sarah took shots at Doug, then Clayton went after Eric while Gabe tried to take out Sarah, making me think both Clayton and Gabe were the deputies. I didn't have much time to find out as I was the first one out (as one of the three outlaws) when some dynamite (which most of us had dodged once or twice already) happened to go off at the wrong time. (Hate when that happens!) Doug and his two deputies (Gabe and Paul) managed to survive while all the outlaws and the one renegade (Clayton in this case) were wiped out. A win for the Good Guys, so to speak, although it wasn't clear who the Good Guys were for a long time.

Eric and I (first two knocked out of the Bang game) managed to get in a quick hand of Lost Cities which Eric won handily. Then it was two three-player games, one being Thebes which Paul won over Sarah and Gabe after Gabe missed on some key excavation pulls. The other game was a new one I wanted to try out, Phalanx's Before the Wind, a someone innovative card game which Eric, Doug and I took on its maiden voyage. Doug seized the early lead and managed to win, 50 to 44 for myself (I had Clayton watching as my teammate in this game) with Eric at 34, with all of us going into the final round within striking distance of the win (Doug hit the winning point score of 50 exactly). The game seemed to get thumbs up from both Doug and Eric, enough to warrant a second appearance some time soon.

Val and Teffy had arrived by this game, so a five-player Mamma Mia was arranged, and Val and I were tied for first with six orders apiece and also tied on the tiebreaker, number of ingredients in hand. Eric was not far behind with four orders while the game proved to be a learning experience for Sarah and Teffy, the two newcomers to the game. Not to be outdone on the food-related themes, Doug, Gabe and Paul hooked up for a game of Nacho Incident, which lasted the rest of the session, final scores: Paul 85 Gabe 79 Doug 76 (a close one!) Clayton joined the Mamma Mia group for a final hand of Category 5 which finished up just as the witching hour of 10 PM struck. Final scores were John 1, Sarah 2, Teffy 11, Eric 13, Clayton 22, Val 32. Teffy -- the one newbie to the game -- managed to avoid taking any negative points until the penultimate (9th of 10 cards) were played, when she wound up taking a full row but still did well to place third in her first game.

Hope everyone had a good time and look forward to seeing everyone again next week.