January 10, 2008 Session Report

Another bump up in attendance this week with a total of 12 gamers in attendance, including several of you whom we welcomed back after a bit of an absence. Doug, Paul, Nick, Clayton, Sarah, Ben, Abe, Rodney, Joan C (Sarah's mom), Stan, Val and myself were the attendees, and Nick and Joan were here for their third meeting, qualifying for GCOM Associate Member Status. Woo hoo!

Regarding the games played, we got in a total of eight different games, two of which were played twice. We had a couple of long games that pushed us up against the 10 PM time limit, and unfortunately we were unable to work Val into a game although she seemed to enjoy kibitzing on the Container and Puerto Rico games.

First to arrive were Doug and Paul who worked in a quick hand of Lost Cities; both scored well, but more handshakes resulted in a win for Paul, 76-39. Nick and I joined the two of them for the second game, R-Eco, and all the scores wound up in single digits: Paul 8 Doug 4 Nick and John 2. Paul was the only non-dumper in the group, and this probably made the difference.

By this time Sarah and her mom had arrived, and Sarah managed to best Joan in Lost Cities. Ben, Abe and Rodney joined us and we split into two groups: Doug taught Race for the Galaxy (a relatively new game) to Sarah, Ben and Rodney; meanwhile Clayton, Joan, Paul, Nick and Abe tried an older, borrowed Euro I had borrowed (courtesy of Scott Fisher) called Knockout. Knockout is a boxing theme game with betting that was reminiscent of Slapshot with some Wits and Wagers style betting action mixed in. Nick's Champion Heavyweight, Robin Zerros, was toppled by Clayton's top fighter for the SuperChampion belt, which set up Clayton to pick up the bonus pot. However, when the scores were read, some adroit betting by Abe put him ahead, 232 to 202 for Clayton, followed by Nick (173) Paul (152) Joan (87).

Race for the Galaxy was a low-scoring affair, won by Rodney (20) with Doug (17) and Ben (16) not far behind while Sarah (13) did not appear to be headed towards a repeat of her success of last week (see Jan. 3 report). The same four players contested several hands of Quiddler, won by crossword puzzle expert Doug (291) followed by Rodney (202), Sarah (172) and Ben (138). Doug pointed out a helpful but little-known rule that you can't have a negative score for one round, something useful to remember when you don't see any vowel cards.

Stan had joined us as we then split into three groups: four of us chose Container, five played Puerto Rico, and then Abe and Clayton squared off in a couple of games of chess (perhaps as a result of their close finish in the Knockout game). The chess games were split, Abe and Clayton winning one apiece. The Container game saw Joan make up for her last place result in Knockout by managing to pay off both loans to score an impressive win (39) to 30 for Stan, who had the highest container score but two loans outstanding. Paul (who didn't have a loan the entire game) was third (19) ahead of me, the "game teacher," last with 13. Still trying to figure this one out.

The Puerto Rico game was really close, Rodney finishing one point ahead of Ben, 51-50, followed by Sarah, Doug and Nick, who supplied the game. Wish I could have played PR, but too many fun games out there and too little time to play them ...

Hope to see everyone back next week for more gaming fun !