October 2, 2008 Session Report

Pleased to report a real nice turnout tonight with a total of 10 gamers in attendance, three of whom (Alan, Mark and Mike) who were making their initial appearance at our weekly sessions here at the Laurel Community Center. Clayton, Doug, Paul, Ben, Don, Greg and I rounded out the attendance roster, and we found time to play a total of seven different games, with two tables going on at once for most of the evening. Games played were Parlay, Pandemic (2x), Tribune, Hollywood Blockbuster, Robo Rally, Ticket to Ride and Cloud Nine. Details follow.

Started with one hand of Parlay, won by Paul despite my winning the poker hand with a full house; Paul's six-letter word was alot better than my five-letter one. By then, the crowd started to arrive and we eventually split into two groups: One (consisting of Alan, Mark, Greg and Paul tackled the world of epidemic diseases and played Pandemic. Unfortunately, in both games the players lost tonight, although word was that they were within striking distance in game two. The other game was a personal favorite, Tribune, where I wound up being the "coach" for the three new players (Clayton, Don and Mike) against Tribune "veterans" Ben and Doug. When I left the table for another game, things were looking up for the newbies, but it turned out to be a win for Doug, but not until Turn 6 (!), making it one of the longer Tribune games in memory. Well, requiring four of the six victory conditions with five players does tend to make for a bit longer game than usual.

When the Pandemic game was being cleaned up, Greg suggested Hollywood Blockbuster, and I joined in along with Alan, Mark and Paul. Newcomer Mark won with 72, followed by Paul at 68, Greg at 64 and Alan at 62, a real close game until you got to yours truly in last with 59. Well, at least a new player won in one of the games tonight! Meanwhile, Doug, Don, Greg, Mike and Ben were shooting at each other in Robo Rally at the other table, a game that lasted most of the rest of the evening and was won by Don.

Clayton, Mark, Alan, Paul and I then played Ticket to Ride (normal game, US map, with the smaller tickets), and Paul scored the win, scoring a total of 116 points while getting all 45 trains on the board in one contiguous route, something I haven't seen before. Very impressive. I was second with 96, followed by Alan at 89, Mark at 73 and Clayton at 72 (both Mark and Clayton missed on one or more tickets).

Finally, to wrap up the evening, there was time for a quick 6-player Cloud 9, the group consisting of Mike, Mark, Alan, Clayton and Greg. Because of time constraints, we halted the game with a 25-point victory condition. I believe Alan got there first, but then it was a nice long balloon ride and several of us were in position to beat his score. Can't remember, I think I jumped out first, got to 31 and won after everyone else crashed.

Thanks to everyone for a memorable session this evening, keep coming every Thursday.

This Saturday there will be a couple of community outreach events where some of us will be demoing games. One will be at the Bowie International Festival, John Goon will be there and I heard Paul mention he expects to attend. I will be helping out with a Chili Tasting Event sponsored by the local Rotary club at the Behnke's on Route 1 in Beltsville, Jeremy from the Beltsville club is slated to appear as well. Looking forward to it. Festivities at both locations start around noon and will continue until some time around 4-5 PM. We expect to have a couple of tables going and will be teaching games to newcomers, similar to what we did last spring at the Main Street Festival in Laurel.