Old Blue Eyes is Back!

An onslaught of spouse's birthdays, tiredness and general unavailability reduced our number to four last night: Katy, Martin and Ian came to my (Joe's) house, to pay our weekly tithes to the lords of gaming.


Speaking of lords, Katy was barely through the door before she suggested Lords of Vegas, and was met with a general murmur of approval. But Martin deftly produced Hats, and suggested we try out the 4 player team variant as an evening starter.

Martin read the blurb in a faintly terrifying manner (apparently Sam stopped him doing this mid-flow last week, and I can see why - very disturbing); something to do with the mad hatters tea-party, and nothing whatsoever to do with the gameplay, as far as I could see. Ian and I were new to the game, and we took Katy and Martin as our partners respectively. The team rules simply add that during your turn you can swap a card with your partner. On a first game it was quite perplexing to know what to swap or whether to bother at all, and despite the simple rules it's quite difficult to see the strategy as the round progresses.

Just look at trompe l'ouil effect of the cookie on the hanky. That's art!

In the end, both teams tied on 63 points, with the second tie-breaker going to Martin and me because I had the cookie. So I won!

Martin & Joe 63 (chocolate chippers)
Katy & Ian 63 (big dippers)

Certainly a game I'd like to try again.

 So Lords it was! Katy almost, but not quite, thought she might need a rules refresher, and we all laughed at the very idea. But as we were setting up, Martin quietly asked for player aid - perhaps it has been longer than we thought - Katy may not even have played since returning from her big trip, can that be right?

Martin got off to a swinging start, getting to 3 points before the rest of us had scored at all. I seemed to be completely devoted to back lots, and though I was able to build three casinos on my first turn, none of them paid out during the next round and I began my second turn with a paltry $2. But at least Frank was there for me - as I built what Martin described as a brothel (I think) on Frank Sinatra Way, he piped up quite unexpectedly on the stereo, hence the blog title.

Ian and Martin certainly did a lot of the early running, but as we entered the mid-game, Katy came storming back to own all three mega casinos on her side of the strip. Though they continued to fight shy of paying out, much to her chagrin, we could all see that they would eventually be the making of her. From then on, Martin and Katy tussled over ownership of a mega 8 point green casino, and the game was probably going to belong to whomever ran it when the final card came out. This made for some interesting offers of help - Ian and Katy bankrolled me reorganising the whole thing on my turn (I had a single die stake), much to Martin's horror. That worked out for Katy.

Note Katy's extremely neat card-stacking.

On a subsequent turn, spotting my plan to takeover Ian's casino, Martin offered to simply lend me $2 - vaguely adding that I might repay it with a hefty vig at some point in the future. It was an offer that felt in-keeping with the 50s Vegas theme, as there was undeniably an air of unspoken threat - I graciously declined the offer, not wanting to end up in a shallow grave in Red Rock West.

The game was also notable for Ian's poor book-keeping, which he blamed convincingly on the level of his beer glass. He inadvertently forgot to pay £24 million for the purchase of two casinos at one point; that's the demon drink for you.

When I drew the Game Over card, it was close for everyone but me. Katy and Martin tied, with the win going to Katy for more cash in hand. Martin was suitably enraged. Ian spotted that he would have won himself, had his takeover bid on the last turn succeeded. It was a game filled with highs, lows and stand up dice rolls (isn't it always?) - an unmitigated pleasure, even from the viewing angle of a distant fourth place.

Katy 44 (won on more cash-in-hand)
Martin 44
Ian 40
Joe 20

Half the board. I confess I was still more interested in Katy's ultra-neat card-arranging.

It was only 9.40, but it felt later - we decided on firm favourite Stinker as a warm down. I can't remember much about it, apart from being able to make the words marzipan and beetroot without using any stinkers in one round - if only it had been relevant to the prompt.

Not that we set much store by such things, but the final score after 8 rounds was close, and we'd each won two rounds. Except that Katy's second win was by judging her own to be the best (with our blessing - she was right).

Katy 27
Martin/Joe 25
Ian 23

After that, Katy and Ian made their farewells, and Martin convinced me that what I really needed was a whupping at 2-player Res Arcana. It wasn't too much of a rout, but I had mentally resigned the moment he began cranking out gold nuggets from his Dragon's Lair on turn one.

Martin 10
Joe 8

A fine evening, thanks all.