July 23, 2009 Session Report

We had a good week attendance-wise, total of 11 gamers, with two (sometimes three) games going on at once. Those present included one first-time attendee, Alex, along with Mike, Doug, Ron, Christie, Jonathan, Paul, Sarah, Clayton, Greg and yours truly (John). We played a bunch of different games, I noted a total of 11 games but may have missed some and was not able to track all the results for those of you who want more detail.

First up was a game Mike brought called Curse of the Mummy that had a double-sided board. Partially due to some confusion about the rules, the game got off to a slow start and a couple of us (Paul and I) elected to join a game we understood a little bit better (Ticket to Ride). That left Doug, Ron and Jonathan to contend with the Mummy (Mike) and apparently the game ran a bit more smoothly although I am sorry to report that Mike, as the Mummy, won that game. The Ticket to Ride game used the 1910 cards and was won by Paul (139) over John (123), Sarah (106) and Clayton (score withheld to prevent further embarrassment). Greg, Christie and our newcomer (Alex) had arrived by this time and played a game of Zooloretto, won by Greg by a single point over Alex with Christie not far behind.

The next series of games included Snow Tails, a four-player (Ron, Doug, Mike and Jonathan) that ended so quickly I didn't get the scores or the winner. Meanwhile, seven of us played Wits and Wagers, Dominic Crapuchettes' excellent trivia/betting game and it came down to the final round and my knowledge of explorers (Ferdinand Magellan in particular) helped me nose out Greg in a very close game.

At this point, all the games finished at around the same time and we reshuffled the groups. Five of us (Ron, Greg, Mike, Jonathan and I) spent the rest of the evening playing Container, which unfortunately we had to call before reaching the final victory condition. Based on the partial scores, we declared Jonathan the winner with an asterisk in his first game. Everyone seemed to enjoy the game (which Greg brought) so hopefully, next time the game can be played to completion.

The other group played at least three games while the rest of us were puzzling over Container. I have Doug down as the winner of a five-player Boom-O, Christie winning a six-player Hoity Toity, and finally Doug was the high-flyer in a six-player Cloud Nine.

Somewhere in there I have in my notes that Alex and Christie played a hand of lost cities, and also that there was one round of a TransAmerica game but can't find the results.