August 21, 2008 Session Report

Before getting to last night's session report, here's an important notice: NEXT WEEK's SESSION, scheduled for Thursday, August 28, has been CANCELED. The Community Center will be closing early for some renovations over Labor Day Weekend this year. Our next session, which will return to the regular 6 - 10 PM time frame, will be Thursday, September 4th.

Last night we had a total of seven in attendance: Doug, Paul, Nick, Clayton and myself were joined by Mark Love, who was so inspired by our Decathlon replay effort that he even brought a nice prize for the winner. (Later we were joined by Rodney, who arrived a bit too late to get in on the decathlon, but helped "roll" during the 1500 meters so we could finish the event a bit faster.) We wound up dropping the Russian athlete, Kuznetsov, after his miserable first day performance (due no doubt to the person rolling the die, because I have a book at home quoting Track and Field News in 1962 talking about how Kuznetsov was "the most consistent Decathlete of them all.") Paul once again took control of Milt Campbell, I was Rafer Johnson, Nick once again tried to direct Jim Thorpe's efforts, while Mark took over with Bill Toomey, Doug was Bob Mathias, and Clayton did his best C. K. Yang impersonation.

Campbell pulled ahead with a strong effort (14.3 time) in the hurdles (which was equalled by Thorpe), but then gave it all back and more in the discus, where Johnson hit on a huge (187 foot) throw to pull out a 100-point plus lead in the overall standings. Then C. K. Yang did his thing in the pole vault, as he was the only decathlete to clear 15 feet. Mathias and Yang were the only two to go over 200 feet in the ninth event, the javelin. So it all came down to the grueling 1500 meter run where, with the help of Rodney's die rolling, we got through the event, with my man (Rafer Johnson) coming home last reflecting some tiredness due to taking an unnecessary eighth attempt in the pole vault and paying for it.

As expected, Thorpe and Toomey dominated the 1500 meters, but it was not enough for them to claim the Gold after factoring in the handicaps. Here's a summary of the final results:

Rafer Johnson 8205 (0 Handicap) 8205
C. K. Yang 8010 (+190 Handicap) 8200
Bill Toomey 7935 (+240 Handicap) 8175
Milt Campbell 7905 (+120 Handicap) 8025
Bob Mathias 7810 (+95 Handicap) 7905
Jim Thorpe 8240 (-345 Handicap) 7895

So, Thorpe pulled ahead on the raw scores with the last event but wound up sixth of six after factoring in the handicaps we agreed to use. Looks like an even closer finish than the 1960 Rome Olympics where Johnson and Yang -- who were teammates at UCLA -- finished 1-2. I decided to award Mark's "prize" to Clayton, who made up alot of lost ground after taking over Yang for the second day of the competition.

I am going to probably put this game away for about four years now but will try going through the game once this weekend during the final few days of the real Olympics, using more athletes (like Bruce Jenner and Daley Thompson) with new files and charts downloaded from the game's page at BoardGameGeek. I will try to post a session report there with the results, for those interested. And, as I said, for those who don't care, the good news is you won't see me bringing the game to a session for another four years.

We still had time after the Decathlon for several other games. Rodney, in particular, made up for lost time by going undefeated the rest of the evening, winning a three-player Race for the Galaxy with Paul and Mike, and then besting Paul in a two-player game. At the other table, Clayton, Nick, Doug and I played a certain prototype card game with alot of shuffling, which I won after several of the players seemed "cursed" alot. The real version of the game is scheduled to come out later this year. By then Mark had left and Clayton was taking a break, so we ended with a five-player For Sale game, also won by Rodney who as I said was undefeated for the evening.

Once again, no session next week so see everyone in two weeks' time (Doug wanted me to remind everyone that next week the Rockville-South group will meet for gaming at the Dream Wizards store, 7 -11 PM).