Texas Lockdown

The rules of lockdown may have changed to allow six people to meet outside, but the six gamers meeting up this evening were still very much in virtual space.

I arrived at a regrettably late quarter past eight and watched as Sam, Ian, Andy, Katy and Martin play Cubirds. It was Katy's first game and she was mightily crestfallen to discover that she had misinterpreted slight differences in a type of bird as two different species. Meanwhile, Martin pondered that Cubirds doesn't scale up well to five players. Katy said she was enjoying it, and then promptly won.

Katy 1
Sam, Martin, Ian, Andy 0 each (or 0 shared between them if you prefer)

As a sextet we considered splitting into two groups but preferred to stay together for a swift For Sale. After a peculiar bidding round where most of the big cards came out in the last round, Martin said he had the kind of hand that meant he didn't have to make any decisions. 

Katy's internet connection vanished just as she was about to select her final card of the game. At least it gave the climax a little bit of a build up.

Andy 51
Katy 47
Ian 47
Martin 46
Andrew 39
Sam 39

Then Sam left and the four of us chose Texas Showdown. I played while cooking a late supper. Katy made pointed remarks about how well her side of the table were doing until the end of the second round when the score was 5-5-5-5-4.

Martin kept asking Andy to lead whenever he had the chance, even though it usually ended badly for him. I seemed to do well in my state of semi-distraction, but Katy was made to eat her boastful words when she was first to hit the game-ending score of 10 tricks.

Andrew 7
Martin 9
Ian 9
Katy 11
Andy 12

Then we rattled off two quick games of Vulture Culture…

Katy 18
Andy 10
Ian 9
Martin 4
Andrew -1

Ian 18
Andrew 16
Katy 10
Martin -1
Andy -5

Before I left the chat. I logged back into BGA to watch them play Marrakech, though. It was pretty even by the time I left them, so I guess Andy was able to put together a huge point-scoring carpet in the latter part of the game.

Andy 63
Katy 39
Mart 35
Ian 23

kthxbai!