Saturday, September 12, 2009

September 10, 2009 Session Report

Another dip in attendance this week, down to just six despite the fact we had an added hour of playing time due to the switch to the longer, non-summer closing time of 10 PM. Greg, Doug, Clayton, Eugene, Don and I were the attendees. We played a total of seven different games, one of them twice.

First up was Stone Age, a game that Eugene was particularly interested in. It was a four-player with Don, Clayton and Doug being the other players. Everyone but Clayton had played before, and the final scores reflected this. Eugene had developed a large number of farms and got all 10 workers in play but he needed another turn or two to score more points. Don triggered the game end and won a real close game, 212 to 197 for Doug and Eugene who wound up tied for second, with Clayton a distant fourth at 108.

Greg had arrived, and he and I played a series of two-player games (all the while hoping that more people would arrive, which wound up being a forlorn hope). We played three hands of Lost Cities, this one I wound up on top, 183 to 54. Then Greg took a two-player Ingenious, 9 to 8. Then, in the "rubber" game, it was Greg besting me at Can't Stop, in what was actually a whitewash, as he got three numbers to the top before I even got one.

Greg and I had each brought Container, and we persuaded Don to join us for a three-player game. The Container game took most of the rest of the session and, after Greg had taken out two loans (the max in a Container game), he got caught in what he called a "nutlocker" situation where he was at the mercy of the other two players. This played into Don's hands, as he won by a wide margin to go undefeated for the evening. Final score count was Don 80, John 52, Greg 20. (20, by the way, is what you start the game with in Container).

Meanwhile, the other table played two games of Settlers. The first game, using the standard rules, was won by Doug with 10 to 7 for Eugene and just 3 for Clayton. It was a fairly quick game, so for the second game the players tried a variant where the player whose turn it was rolled two pair of dice (a la Can't Stop) and paired them up for production. This game was a bit closer, Eugene getting to 10 ahead of Doug (9) with Clayton last again at 5.

Our last game of the evening, which we didn't quite have time to complete, was Cloud Nine. Eugene was playing for the first time, and he had some tough luck a couple of times when he was the balloon pilot. I believe I was ahead, somewhere in the 30s, when we had to pick up the game. Eugene, Clayton, Doug and Greg were my fellow balloonists as Don retired early with an undefeated record for the evening.

Hope to see more people at next week's session.

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