Do I look bothied?

When I arrived at Sam’s, a little before 8, I found I’d already been dealt into Fuji Flush. Weirdly, this game of luck is the only game I have any real form in so I was glad to hear it was back on the table. But I was in no position to challenge Adam, who played one double-digit card after another. His victory was assured when I snuck a joint second by joining in with his final card: an 11. Meanwhile, Sam said he had nothing bigger than an 8 for the whole game. The scores were (approximately…)

Adam 0 cards left

Joe 1

Andrew 1

Martin 1 or 2

Sam 2

Then we split into two groups. Martin, Laura, Joe and Sam played Lost Continent at one end of the table and Katy, Adam and I played Isle of Skye. Although Isle of Skye was Katy’#s game, she admitted she couldn’t really remember the rules, so Adam read them as we set up  and tiptoed unsurely through the first round (we all scored three points) until we had a better idea of what we were doing.

Katy went big on sets (farms, lighthouses and bothies, which is where the blog title was born)  as well as fretting about not being able to complete a lake. My rectangular kingdom scored big on the three-vertical-tiles reward while Adam ended the game with lots of money, but in a fairly distant last place.

Katy 84

Andrew 78

Adam 62

Adam and I tried to take the shine off Katy’s win by pointing out that she kept taking tiles out of the bag first, even when she wasn’t starting player. But she wasn’t discouraged, spending more time bonding with Laura since she’d just also just won.

That game, Lost Continents, seemed to be somewhat AP-ish, with Laura insisting that it was the most she’d ever concentrated and Martin (I think) commenting that it was an awful lot of thought for very little return.

Laura 28

Martin 24

Sam 22

Joe 22

Then there was a slight reshuffle, with the two victors swapping groups: Katy joined Joe, Martin and Sam for a game of Nokosu Dice and Laura joined me and Adam, asking for a game with dice. Eventually we decided on Las Vegas, which has plenty of dice. So many, in fact, that none of us noticed I had an extra one until we’d finished and Adam was packing it away. This made my supreme win very suspect. I magnanimously offered to dock myself $20,000 but somehow they didn’t seem impressed by my magnanimosity.

Andrew $53,000

Adam $31,000

Laura $16,000

Then Laura left and Adam and I went head to head on good old Azul. We played the free side of the board, where you can put your tiles where you like, but they still have to obey the rule of one of each colour per column/row. Adam stymied himself a couple of times, but still had enough to beat me soundly.

Azul 62

Andrew 48

After that, Katy, Adam and I left. Joe, Martin and Sam were pondering another but for me it was a dash into the night. Thanks all. See you all soon.

On the Nokosu Dice half of the table, it appeared to be a roller coaster of emotions as Katy was heard to ask, delighted, “am I winning?” only to be in the slough of despond a few minutes later. It ended in high drama, as Joe was looking hopeful for the win if he got his predicted number of tricks. Alas, he had one trump left in his hand and it won him one trick too many. If he’d made his call, he’d have won the whole thing.

Martin 66

Katy 37

Sam 33

Joe 24