It's not so much a game - more like some cards get dealt and then someone's won

It was a warm but stormy night, and the intrepid Martin, Katie and Ian made it all the way to Hannah and Adam's (my) humble abode, where the smell of jealously-guarded apple crumble just about overpowered the Guinea Pigs.

Andy was due to join us, but before that we played Deep Sea Adventure. In round one everyone played very conservatively and got one or two treasures back to the submarine. Learning exactly the wrong lessons everyone but Ian was incapacitated and dropped their booty in round two. Then in round three things were touch and go for Hannah (who miscounted and picked up the treasure that killed her), Martin who got out by the skin of his teeth and Ian who needed to roll better than double one with the last set of dice to win handily on treasure collected. But snake eyes robbed him and Davy Jones kept the loot.

Adam 48
Martin 44
Ian 15
Hannah 8
Katy 7

With Andy due any minute we dealt him in to a game of 6Nimmt (the slightly prettier version - although Katie is in the market for an edition featuring attractive woodland animals). Some claim the game is entirely random, but Andy (puppeteer'd by Katy) proved that "going Dirk" for a whole game (playing a random card and picking up the smallest pile when you have to) is not the way to win.

In a closely fought finish the second last hand toppled Ian into second place, while the last plunged Martin from third to fifth.

Adam 22
Ian 24
Katy 27
Hannah 29
Martin 40
Andy/Dirk 82

Around this time we learned that Andy wasn't joining us after all, so the next game - the Knitzer-authored hex-based card-powered chariot-racer Circus Maximus - was a five player free-for-all. Martin and I played dirty from the start, blocking other players, slowing right down for the corners to cause pile ups and generally being obnoxious (although Martin did miss a great opportunity to screw me and when it was pointed out claimed that was just his generous nature). Meanwhile Katy stayed out of the melee and crept through for the win.

1st Katy
2nd Adam
3rd Martin
4th Hannah
5th Ian

With the time approaching ten Martin sprang Pairs on the rest of us. With its usual running commentary (oh, the pear - how nice! Onion!) it passed the time, but grabs the blog title with a pithy description from a bitter loser.

Martin 23
Adam 19
Ian & Hannah 12
Katy 5

Finally with the snacks depleted and eyelids beginning to droop, the second game of the night from the Reiner Knitzer compendium was broken out: Imperium! Playing like a more urgent version of El Grande we were done in fifteen minutes, with the honors going to the most patrician player.

Martin 24
Ian 17
Adam and Katy 15
Hannah 13

And with that the responsibility for the blog was decided and we all wend our ways to bed.