May 21, 2009 Session Report

In this, our final 2009 session before the shift to Memorial Day and the earlier 9 PM closing time, we had a good turnout with 10 gamers, including one newcomer to the club, Christie. Don, Mike, Paul, Ron, Gabe, Doug, Chris, Gabe and I were the other attendees. We played a total of seven different games and had two games going on for the entire session.

Mike had brought a game we had played once before but not recently, LeHavre, and Doug, Don and I joined in. Don was new to the game while the rest of us had played a few times before. We played the full 20-turn, 4-player game which took up just about the entire session time. I thought Mike was doing well but he stalled out about midway through after having to take out a couple of loans, and fell behind in the shipbuilding arena despite owning both Wharfs. Don built some nice buildings that proved quite popular, and he was in a position to win had I not pulled it out with some well-timed sales at the Shipping Line and the Bridge in the endgame. Final scores were real close, John 143 Don 141 Doug 128 and Mike (the teacher for this game) last with 109. Think Don would have won had he understood how to convert goods to points in the endgame a bit better.

The other table made up for our group in terms of numbers of games played. First up was Boomtown, which Gabe won (81) ahead of Chris (74), Christie (53), Ron (47) and Paul (33). Then, in probably the closest contest of the evening, Qwirkle Cubes was a one-point win for Paul, 65 to 64 for the Chris/Greg team (Chris started the game, Greg finished) and another point back at 63 was Gabe, then Ron at 62 and Christie in last at 57 despite being only eight points out of first.

Slide 5, where a low score is best, was won by Ron (7), then Paul (29), Chris (42), Gabe (48), Greg (50), Christie (55). Then, another six-player game, Incan Gold, no report on the scores, heard Greg was the winner (hope I have that right). Also have Roll Through the Ages on the games played list, no report on who played or who won (perhaps that game was not finished).

Then, final game of the evening, Vegas Showdown, everyone had played before except Christie, who was new to the game and the winner was ... Christie, with 47 to 43 for Greg, 36 for Ron, 31 for Gabe, and just 27 for Paul. (Even with five players, seems like a relatively low scoring game, one stack of tiles must have run out fairly soon ...) Congrats to Christie on her first win in her first session at the club.