I couldn't Cairo less

 This Tuesday we all converged on Joe’s house for the weekly dose of games. When I arrived, Joe, Sam, Martin, Pete, Ian and Katy were all waiting for me and Adam H. Since Adam was a few minutes away yet, we playing a quick game of In Vino Morte. In this game, a player deals out cards that either have wine or poison on them, but only the dealer knows who is poisoned. Each player can swap their card without looking at it or “drink” (ie, turn it over to reveal its true nature).

In round one, only Katy and Joe swapped and when they showed their cards at the end of the round, they had the only two poison cards that had been dealt out. There was, as Joe commented, “a certain poetry in it.”

In the end, as we slowly eliminated players, it was down to me against Martin and I was dealing. 

I won! Martin drank the poison.

I remember people saying that I display some poker skills in the last round but I don’t recall what my strategy was.

Next we split into two groups. Tables were moved and beer was spilt as we rearranged the room so that both games had their own table.

Katy suggested Lords of Vegas, and it was early enough in the evening so that it was accepted. Pete, Ian and Joe joined Katy.

Adam, Sam, Martin and I went for something that may be described as less-luck-based but, knowing our history with flicking games, could be anything but. The game was Cairo and the idea is to roll a dice and move your boat up and down the Nile, and when it stops, you’re able to flick some of your (limited) supply of blocks from your ship and into scoring areas. 

It’s a simple majority wins rule with points for first and second place, but with the proviso that if you flick into an area and there are enough cubes already there, you can build a pyramid. You would do this because cubes at the top of the pyramid are worth more than those underneath.

I started badly, sending most of my cubes out of bounds (and out of the game) and this was, mostly, how my game played out. Martin, meanwhile, managed to knock his boat over twice losing him a cube each time as a forfeit. And this was after he’d explained that to do so was actually pretty difficult.

I did enjoy the new layout though. Having the opportunity to walk between tables gave Joe’s kitchen something of the air of a casino.

Talking of which, Lords of Vegas seemed to be a very swingy game. Joe began well, picking up points with his gold casino while two casino - green and brown - didn’t pay out at all, defying all odds. Then Ian went from having nothing to owning a 5-tile and 3-tile casino in one turn.

As for Cairo, despite me having lost 5 cubes, Sam ran out of cubes first. And when it came to adding up the final scores, Adam was a clear winner. He was first in 5 different scoring areas, a testimony to his flicking skills. He went further than the scoretrack allowed, while Martin only picked up points in one solitary area.

Adam 72

Andrew 36

Sam 34

Martin 14

As for LoV, I heard the phrase “Five 6s?! That’s mental Katy” float across the room, but otherwise they were still far from ending. We played two more games: Invaluable. 

Martin 45

Adam 43

Andrew 42

Sam 34

And then Llama Llama, which was over so quick, I didn't take any photos. Martin thrashed us, reaching the winning target of 100 in just two rounds.

Then we played a single round of Jungo- a game of playing increasingly powerful hands, which I won.

And on the other table, I heard Katy begging for the next card to be the Game End card. It was, and her very close victory was assured.

Katy 36

Joe 32

Ian 29

Pete 12

And with that, I set off. Thanks to all for another great evening.

*

After Andrew and Adam left us, we realised Pete had very little time before his train. But So Clover was out on the table so we hit upon the ruse of Pete leaving a Mystery Clover for us to solve, and taking a picture of it for cross-examination later. With myself, Katy Ian and Martin all providing sixes to start with, how would we fare with Pete's clues? 

Unfortunately, rather badly. Feline and animal both went with lion, animal also went with slug, and there were some portobello vibes to the extra card as well as our own confusion. We gave it a shot but when Martin referenced the photo Pete had sent, we'd only managed to place a single card correctly! But without Pete here to give us the second chance, we swiftly disregarded this and moved onto Joe's final clover, scoring another six to give us 30/30, or 31/36 if you want to be completist about it. We didn't. 

I forgot to take pics of everything but here are Joe and Ian's clovers - we particularly enjoyed Ian's downpour for drink/weather. 

It was nearing 11 and Katy announced she had to go, even getting as far as putting a coat on. But when Martin waved Jungo around she was tempted to stay. I was feeling like I should really head home too, but I was too tired to haul myself out of the chair so having announced I might go, I then said I was staying. Joe said he was tired and maybe he would ask us to leave, and then we played Jungo. 

tired

This is a simpler take on SCOUT - a card-shedder where you can't rearrange your cards, but can play sets of the same number (no runs) if they're sitting adjacent in your hand. What's more, when you beat something you can either discard the beaten cards or pick them up - so for example, if your two 3s beat two 2s, you can add the 2s to a solitary 2 in your mitts and make it into three 2s instead. Easy!

I enjoy this, but we did find in practice it sometimes led to two players flipping back and forth between progressively larger sets as everyone else picked up cards - when you can't or choose not to play - and found themselves spectators for periods. Still, fun though. Joe and Katy won a round each and we realised that with five, the game might run all the way past various bedtimes and called it there. 

Outside the car I'd seen dangling over the precipice on my way to Joe's earlier was now gone. Or maybe I just rode past it in a daze.