August 20. 2009 Session Report

We had a huge turnout at this week's session; our numbers swelled considerably, mainly due to Eric bringing several family members, including a couple who were perhaps a bit on the young side but future gamers nonetheless. However, based on those who actually participated in games played tonight, I counted a total of 14: Ron, Paul, Clayton, Doug, Eugene (back for a second week in a row), Don, Christie, Alex, Eric, Eric's son Ryan, Sarah, Eric's wife Mary Jean, Mark (who came in a bit late but got into a couple of games) and myself.

Games played: For Sale, Can't Stop, Winners' Circle, Vegas Showdown, Scrabble, Ticket to Ride: 1910, Snow Tails, RoboRally, Lost Cities. Details follow to the extent available.

For Sale was the first game, played by six of us while waiting for others to show up. Winner by a narrow margin was Doug (54,000) ahead of John (52,000), Clayton and Eugene (43,000 each), Paul (35,000) and Ron (25,000). Eugene and Ron I believe were playing for the first time.

Can't Stop was a four (actually a five player) affair, with Ryan and Mary Jean sharing one of the seats. It was a close game, three people getting two numbers before Christie got the roll she needed to win. Alex and Eric also played.

Winners' Circle, the horse racing game, was played by Ron, Don, who were joined by Sarah then later by Mark. Final scores were reported as 2150 for Ron, 1850 for Don, 1650 for Sarah and 750 for Mark who I don't believe participated in all of the races.

Eugene was interested in playing another one of his favorites, Vegas Showdown, and the game was a five-player, another close game. I managed to win with 53 to 51 for Doug, a reverse of the first game. Eugene was not far behind at 50, followed by Clayton at 42 and Paul at 36. Very well-played as everyone had played before and was familiar with the game.

Next game I have reported was Ticket to Ride, the 1910 version, turned out to be another good game for Doug who scored 148, including both bonuses (most completed tickets and longest connected set of links). I came in second at 124 despite not making two of my seven tickets. Others were Paul (112), Eric (106) and Eugene (80). I'm thinking Eugene was new to the game or this version of it.

Alex and Christie did a search and found an old Scrabble game in the club's games and it expanded as Sarah (helping Christie) and Clayton (helping Alex) joined in as teammates. They found a second board and played with more tiles, just about filling out both boards when the tiles ran out. The girls beat the boys, 430 to 322. One of the big words with bonus points I saw was ozone, very impressive. Thanks to Doug (our human dictionary) for helping out with some of the rules questions.

Doug, Eugene and Eric started a game of RoboRally that didn't quite finish by closing time. Eric had touched two flags to just one for the other two players when the game was called just before 9 PM.

Three-player Snow Tails was won by Ron (I guess this means Ron was undefeated for the evening) ahead of Don and Mark. I think Mark was new to the game.

Paul and I, who were not excited about the game choices, played three hands of Lost Cities. All three were very close, particularly the third hand when we both turned in some really high scores, I had 159 and Paul 158, each of us had different colors (I had three, Paul had two) and we each had an eight-card set. Overall scores for the three hands were John 252, Paul 240.

Hope to see everyone next week although rumors not everyone will be back for awhile. Have a good year at school in Florida, Christie.