July 3, 2008 Session Report

We had fairly good attendance this week, as the three-day weekend enabled some folks we haven't seen for awhile to attend given Friday was a Holiday instead of a workday. Therefore, we welcomed back Neil and Val to the club, joining Sarah, Nick, Ben, Clayton, Paul, Greg (for his third session in a row) and myself for a total of nine in attendance. We played a total of seven different games, with two tables going at just about all times throughout the evening.

I had brought my brand new copy of Tribune, which I taught to Neil, Val, Sarah and we played a five-player along with Paul, who had played before with my hand-made copy. I managed to pull out the win after four turns, although Sarah did quite well and was close to achieving the victory conditions as well. It was a long wait for the English edition of this fine Essen game from last fall to come out, and I'm glad I got it.

The other four attendees (Greg, Clayton, Nick and Ben) played San Juan, the scores show a very high-scoring, competitive game, won by Greg with 47 followed by Ben with 42. Then the same group played Ra, and this turned out to be a really close game requiring a check of the rules to look up the tiebreaker (which as I recall, is the highest sun total). Final scores on the Ra game were Nick 35 Clayton 35 Ben 34 Greg 25, with Nick prevailing over Clayton on the tiebreaker.

The Ra and Tribune games finished at roughly the same time, so I moved to the other table to play another favorite, Hollywood Blockbuster (the remake of Traumfabrik), with Greg, Nick and Ben. I managed to do something I have rarely done, complete the highest possible value movie (a 22) and went on to win with Greg in second. Well-played game by Greg, who was playing it for the first time.

The other group of Paul, Val, Sarah, Clayton and Neil opted for the regular Ticket to Ride game (a break from the newer 1910 and Swiss versions we have played in recent weeks) -- Val was the winner with Paul in second. The final two games of the evening were Wits and Wagers, won by Ben, and an abbreviated version of Cloud 9 which had Clayton winning until the final balloon trip where he gambled on Greg's piloting skills after the rest of us had bailed out.

Hope to see everyone back for an exciting session next week. I just obtained a copy of a rare out-of-print game that I hope to have on hand.