May 23, 2013 Session Report

We had nine attendees this week, including two first-time attendees, Alison and Brad, who had just moved to the Laurel area.  Others were Doug, Mike, Ben, Tim, Alex, Rembert and myself.  We played a total of five games:  Puerto Rico, Settlers of Catan - Germany, the Settlers dice game, Tzolkin:  The Mayan Calendar game and Gemlok.  We had at least two games in progress for almost the entire session.

At one table, Rembert had a really good evening.  In a very close Settlers - Germany game, he came from behind to win after Doug and I had threatened victory.  In the end, Rembert placed his ninth point on the board and then flipped a 1 VP card for his tenth point to claim the win.  At the time, I had 9 VP on the board but none in hand.  Doug and Ben, the other players, also had 9 VP -- one in hand plus 8 on the board, so any one of us was poised to win the game had Rembert not done so.  Then, Doug, Rembert and I played Gemlok, which Doug had brought.  It was another close finish.  I triggered the endgame while ahead, but everyone had one more turn so Rembert managed to come from behind to win another close game.  Final scores were Rembert 48, John 45, Doug 41.

The other table started up with a game of Puerto Rico, which for some reason I missed out on.  It was another nail-biting finish, with Alex edging Mike by one, 44 to 43, followed by Tim with 36.  (Mike had originally thought he had won on the tiebreak until a recount showed Alex with one more point.)  By this time Alison and Brad had arrived, and they bided the time for the next game by playing the very quick Settlers dice game, which Brad won.  Then they joined Mike and Tim for Tzolkin.  The game did not quite finish and was scored at the 3/4 mark, before any monuments could be procured.  Anyway, this truncated game had Brad as the winner, with 38 to 32 for Alison, followed by Mike (27) and Tim (13).

It's good to see some new people who are gamers moving into the area, so I hope to see both Alison and Brad at future sessions.