Beginner’s Luck vs. Explainer’s Curse

This week, Joe was the host and we began as a tentative six: five present and one expected imminently. Joe and friend of the family Dan, Sam, Martin and me, with Adam sure to arrive at any second. There was some idle chit-chat as if the presence of a newcomer was enough to put us off our natural inclinations to skip past the small talk and get down to the nitty-gritty.

With Adam surely about to appear at the door step, we decided that Team Play would be a good six player option to take us up to the time when Katy and then Ian were due to arrive. Dutifully, Joe talked Dan through the rules and he was almost finished when there was a knock at the door. It was Adam. And Katy. Too many players for Team Play and Joe put it away with a sigh.

Now we were seven. Katy was angling for a game of Lords Of Vegas, all they (Joe, Katy and Dan) had to do was wait for Ian to get here and they. Adam, Sam, Martin and I played Sol, the recent debutante. Martin looked through the rules as we set up (but he didn't seem keen on reading the short stories that go with it) and clarified a couple more rules.

In the game, Martin and I are both energy rich thanks to our very popular gates. Sam begins hurling his ships into the sun very early on, making him the man to beat. Was he banking on the sun collapsing quickly? He was to be disappointed as card after card was revealed without a red sign indicating the sun is becoming more unstable.

Adam finally got together enough cubes to complete his plan, but then the sun let out a solar flare and his stock of 13 energy cubes was suddenly depleted by half. How we laughed at his discomfort. Then we allowed him a do-over (since other players had been already given the same opportunity) in which he didn't take the optional bonus cube he was entitled to and therefore his 12 energy cubes were safe.

As the game progressed it looked like the sun wasn't going to collapse at all. I hurled four ships in one turn into the dying star and still it didn't end the game. The final red card was actually the final card in the deck. Luckily no one was in a position to catch me, although Adam was able to grab joint second with the last turn of the game.

Andrew 27
Adam 24
Martin 24
Sam 20

The other three played smaller shorter games. First was Kingdomino, a new game to Dan but one he seemed to take to rather well.

Dan 54
Joe 40
Katy 38

After this, they played the only Taiwanese game that Joe owns, apparently. namely, Castle Crush. Again it was new to Dan again, again, he came out victor. He modestly tried to pass off his second win in a row as beginner's luck while Joe tried to tell him about Explainer's Curse and how it is a real thing.

Dan 24
Katy 21
Joe 15

Ian arrived during Castle Crush and was informed swiftly that he would be playing Lords of Vegas as soon as they were done. Something he had no problem with.

The table was heaving with the joys of modern boardgaming and for a while, you could barely see the tabletop for cardboard.

After Sol, Adam, Martin, Sam and I got stuck into Senators the craze that's turning into a tradition. In this game of political bribery in Rome, Martin set off into an early lead while Adam and I fell back. But Adam and I both had a card that would let you steal points from the leading player. With this in mind, I cashed in as soon as I could and Sam and Adam joined me. Suddenly, Martin fell from first to joint last.

He tried to claw his way back but was beset by misfortune. In a blind bid for a senator, he bid seven talents and Sam bid eight, which is exactly how this game should be played. Then I got a stroke of luck in a round where each player has the option of buying a senator for a steadily decreasing value. I passed with the price at nine. Martin prevaricated over eight but then passed. Adam passed on seven and Sam passed on six. I didn't expect to get another chance and I snapped it up for five! Good job, too, because the fourth war came soon after.

Andrew 9
Sam 8
Martin 7
Adam 7

In Lords of Vegas, Dan's beginner's luck seemed to be holding. His first three plots where all in the same block. Katy was delighted, meanwhile, to have a casino on the strip at almost the very start of the game and then spent most of the game chanting "Strip! Strip! Strip!" whenever a new card was revealed.

But for us lot, Senators was followed up by the lighter fare of Spy Tricks. The four greatest minds of GNN clashed over this simple trick taker and deduction game and, seemingly, cancelled and each other out. In the first round, none of us got a single guess right. Astonishing.

In the second round, I guessed the right rank and Sam got the correct suit, but our attempts at finding the right card were hopeless. Any signs of improvement, though, were mere illusion as we bumbled through the last round with only me guessing something right: the suit. And that's how I managed to win a game of Spy Tricks with a score that would normally see you in distant last.

Zero correct

Andrew 7
Sam 2
Martin 0
Adam 0

Adam went home at this point and Lords of Vegas hadn't finished so we cracked out a couple of confused rounds of Sticheln (chosen after Martin checked the remaining cards in Lords of Vegas to get an idea of how much time they had left to play). Despite Martin scoring no points at all in round one, his second round stole the game.

Martin 16
Andrew 14
Sam 12

Lords of Vegas continued with Dan's six tile casino flipping to Ian in an unlikely re-organisation. It didn’t last and, if Ian’s claim to be “floundering” is anything to go by, it was the final bit of luck to go Ian’s way.

Bottom left, Ian has stolen Dan's casino

Katy, though, was in such a good position that she was able to leave the table between her turns and have a conversation with Joe’s wife. That’s confidence for you. And then, later on, she ran out of dice: a first for her. All of this added up to an impressive win, despite the Strip barely paying out at all.

Katy 54
Joe 40
Dan 26
Ian 23

Now we were seven again and, despite it creeping towards eleven o’clock, we had one more game inside us. Pairs. Joe described it to Dan as being like Blackjack in that we were aiming for 21 points. But then he had to admit that, apart from that, it was nothing like Blackjack at all.

I was Mr Cautious and, for once, it paid off. I was the only one to score in every round. Ian sneered at my and Katy’s timidness seconds before he went bust, and similarly Martin cursed himself by saying “I’ve got to go big,” before being dealt a pair.

Andrew 22
Ian 16
Sam 16
Katy 15
Joe 13
Dan 7
Martin 2

And so we were done.Thanks to Joe and a hat-tip to Dan. See you all next week.

Ages and Ages

A Friday evening had been pre-arranged to give three hardy gamers: Sam, Joe and myself, a decent chance to try Through The Ages, an epic of a game taking in the entire sweep of human history.

I got to Joe’s at 7.30 and the game was already set up. Sam talked us through the rules, due to a handy six-page crib sheet of all the salient points of the game. It’s a bit of a monster, and it involves expanding your population (yellow cubes) and your resources (blue cubes) in tandem so that your society never runs out or has too many of either. In order to do this, you can expand/upgrade your buildings which give you boosts in science or culture which, in turn, allows you to upgrade to more buildings. This happens across four stages: the short Antiquity stage followed by the main meat of the game: Ages 1, 2 and 3.

We began by weighing up our options with leaders (“Homer looks nice.”) which would give us special abilities. Sam and I made a pact, allowing Sam to turn one resource in a food and me to turn a food into a resource. Joe discovered iron early on, but fell behind on sciences.

I came up with a tactic, in which I worked out that two soldiers were better than one. Then Sam thought of a better tactic that had three soldiers in it.

As we moved through the first age, I fell behind in military so I invented knights. Couldn’t come up with a tactic that involved them, though. I guess they just went into battle willy-nilly. Joe came up with the scientific method while Sam’s population were very happy with their Hanging Gardens and Great Wall.

Time was ticking on, though, and as the second age dawned it was almost ten o’clock. We decided to finish at half past, since the game hadn’t grabbed us and show no signs of picking up speed the more we went on. Luckily for me, my leader was Christopher Columbus who allowed me to discover an island I had in my hand of cards. This “Historic Island” (with electric lighting, if the illustration was anything to go by) got me 11 culture points, putting me in an unassailable lead. The final two rounds played out in a perfunctory manner, with the charms of the game never quite justifying it’s slow progress. Sam thought that Historia scratched a similar itch in half the time while Joe thought it had made the historical events a little too abstract for his liking. I think that’s what he meant, anyway.

We packed the game away, keen for something silly to finish off with. We chose Castle Crush as it’s a game that rarely gets the attention it deserves. It satisfies the desires to create and destroy. We built our little castles for our king and general.

Mine did so well in round one that I more or less kept the same design for the next two rounds, too. Almost worked, except one decisive blow at the end sent my king flying.

Sam’s third round edifice was his strongest, keeping his two meeples safely ensconced.

Meanwhile, Joe managed to put a level three block in his building for six bonus points at the end.

Nice to revisit this game after so long.

Joe 75
Andrew 66
Sam 63

Finally, we introduced Sam to the game of Wordsy. With Sam’s fondness for Boggle, we were expecting it to be a hit, but instead Sam found it rather stressful. Perhaps it was the late hour and he was too fatigued after Through The Ages. He still did well, though.

Andrew 116 (best word “Friendship,” 25 points)
Sam 109 (“Requesting,” 23 points)
Joe 105 (“Masquerading,” 23 points)

And so, we were done. What an experience. It’s hard to see when we’ll find the time for a full game of Through The Ages, but it was nice to give it a try. Thanks all.

The Berger Interlewd

Seven hearty gamers descended on Joe's house to join him for this week's GNN - Martin, Matt (2), Katy, Chris, Laura, Ian, and myself, Sam. Katy met Laura for the first time and immediately apologised for "all that was to come", which meant she had plenty to live down to.

We had the perfect number of players for Captain Sonar, but Joe rejected the idea on the grounds his table was the wrong shape and size - more of a rubber ring than a submarine, and therefore not worthy. Instead we began with a rousing game of Fuji Flush. I didn't keep a tally of the dick points, but there were plenty to go around. Most of them were handed out by Matt, who seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of high cards:

Matt - out!
Chris/Sam: one card
Martin/Laura/Joe: two cards
Katy/Ian: three cards

After this, we split into two groups, with Martin leading the Flamme Rouge splinter - himself, Ian, Joe and Matt - and the rest of us left to stare in awe at Joe's rejigged games alcove, which he had arranged as most-desired: most-accessible. I asked if the ones out of reach were never to be played, but these were actually in another building. We settled on Castle Crush, as Katy said the rules were simple. Joe still had to explain them though, which may have affected his performance in Flamme Rouge...

I'd not played Castle Crush before but often wanted to. Apparently the original rules are ludicrously complicated and Joe had found a replacement set, which was pretty simple: build your castle, hope nobody knocks it over. Particularly your King and General. Your king needs to be high up, but on the other hand, he can lie down, whereas the General must stand. Having negotiated building, we then try and knock each other's castles down... Chris led the early running, but made himself a target by doing so. Before we knew it, it was over!

Laura 65
Sam 61
Chris 56
Katy 48

So we played again. And again Chris led early, and found himself targeted. I jumped into the lead as we entered the final round, but we neglected to pay attention to Katy's sneaky 2 and 3 level castle (more levels: more points) and she grabbed the slenderest of wins:

Katy 62
Sam 61
Chris 52
Laura 51

On the other half of the table, Flamme Rouge was still being contested, so we bashed out a game of Top Secret Spies, where you move whichever agent you like around the board, and score their positions whenever any of the agents reach the safe. You're trying not to give away which spy you are, as that would mean you get moved onto the shitty spots, but we almost disguised ourselves too well: I was convinced Laura was green when she scored loads of points for it, but then Katy moved it back into contention after it was subsequently ignored... hmmm. The one thing I was sure of was that green wasn't Chris. Except it was, and all my who-is-which-colour guesses at game end were utterly wrong. Katy fell foul of the same inaccuracy, whereas Laura got a couple right - and Chris every single one! He still lost, though:

Laura 48
Sam 42
Chris 41
Katy 39
Rogue Spy 38

And Flamme Rouge had come to an end!

1. Martin
2. Matt
3. Ian
4. Joe

There was now time for Joe's 'interlewd', whereupon he told a smutty joke he'd seen on TV. Katy did not approve, but the politics of it all is probably too complicated to cover in detail here. But after the joke, and the post-joke analysis, and Martin saying he knew another joke that was also about an elephant having sex with a lion, the hour was still early. So we split into two new fours, with Martin and Chris effectively swapping places. Chris, Joe, Ian and Matt went for Mamma Mia, while the rest of us played the trick-taking shenaniganiser that is Sluff Off: win tricks to lose minus points!

This was described in more detail in the last post, but suffice to say, fun was had, even though we couldn't quite work out why the third re-theme of this old game had taken a turn for the sluffy.

Sam -3
Martin -12
Katy - 15
Laura -26

Mamma Mia, meanwhile, had had a couple of restarts due to the disappearance of Joe, a misunderstanding of the rules, then the reappearance of Joe. Eventually though, Matt won:

Matt 6
Joe 5
Chris 4
Ian 2

I was out of the room when Joe jotted down the scores, so he'll have to explain why he added the note 'tactical pepperoni' in the comments.

Laura called it a night at this point, so down to a bare seven, we broke out Midnight Party and explained the rules to Matt. Hugo was a busy boy in the first round, snaffling up the guests like nobody's business, before having a quieter second round then a mixed third. Charlotte - who had banned the game previously - returned towards the end, but it was a mostly tense pessimism rather than the uproarious despair of yore, and we were able to continue. Katy and I rejoiced in our shared victory:

Katy/Sam -11
Joe -12
Martin - 14
Ian - 22
Chris -29
Matt -37

Chris now made for home too, which left the six of us to end the evening with Dead Man's Chest. For once, we didn't have to explain the rules - apart from what happens when you get handed Dead Man, which curiously enough, happened several times this evening! It was a game of a lot of high rolls, and one or two extravagant bluffs. We even had two Dead Mans in a row, causing much mirth for Martin, who Joe noted is blessed with the ability to find great humour in probability. Plus the immortal line "Who do you like to screw over the most?"

My evening of first and second places imploded as I was first out, followed by Ian, Matt and Katy, leaving Joe and Martin to face off for the win.

Joe handed over what he called 'double sixes' - Martin challenged, and then revealed: Dead Man! Which Martin pointed out Joe should have called himself, rather than undercutting, as Martin could have handed them back, successfully calling them Dead Man. But - it worked.

Joe - two gems!
Martin
Katy
Matt
Ian
Sam

A nice collection of games and people. Thanks all!

One for diamonds, two for gold

This week was a special date in the GNN calendar. it was a Katy's birthday. However, due to a nasty cold, it was not the happiest of birthdays. Perhaps, we hoped, some good company and better games would improve matters.

There were seven of us at Adam's: Adam, Ben, Andy, Ian, Katy, and myself with Joe expected along shortly. We tried to think of a nice group game we could all enjoy together, but without Martin or Sam or Joe, we were short of options. No Pairs, no Celestia, no Push It, barely anything. Only 6nimmt was available, and so we played that.

Since we were expecting Joe to arrive soon, we dealt in Dirk as a dummy hand that Joe could take over once he arrived. As you might expect from a random series of cards, Dirk veered from uncanny escapes to hopeless doom. But then again, so did the rest of us.

Midway through the second round, Martin arrived, all aglow with the joys of new fatherhood. He was only supposed to say hello, but with an unclaimed stack of cards on the table, he couldn't resist the invitation and took over Dirk's role for the rest of the game.

Andrew 21
Katy 36
Andy 36
Adam 42
Ian 47
Dirk 53
Ben 80

After this, Martin set off home and Joe arrived. He'd brought Birds of a Feather with him (the game, not a DVD box set of the sitcom) and since it played seven, he explained the rules and we all had a couple of games.

The game is very simple. From your hand of cards (with birds on), everyone plays one card into to centre. You, as a birdspotter, can see any birds that are in the same environment as the card you played. This means, you can tick off those birds on your scorepad. Then all these cards move into the centre, but stay face up, giving you the opportunity to spot birds that you missed with your next card (assuming you have the right environment in your hand).

It was fun and surprisingly thinky.

Andy 26
Joe 23
Katy 22
Andrew 22
Adam 22
Ben 20
Ian 15

In the next game we played an extra rule: the raptor rule. This means that when a raptor (a bird of prey) is played, all the birds from the previous round from the same environment are scared off (turned face down) and can't be spotted.

Andrew 29
Joe 25
Andy 24
Katy 23
Ian 19
Adam 16
Ben 12

A nice, relaxing game. Joe said that he wished he had some recordings of birdsong as a background. I have a feeling it's also meant to be educational, but I didn't look at the cards enough.

Then we split into two groups. Andy, Adam and Ian went the hard route, battling each other with tactics and pasties in that old favourite: Tinners' Trail.

We remaining four struck out into lighter territory with another new game from Joe: Karuba. He described it as a cross between Incan Gold and Take It Easy, and that's exactly what it was. Four meeples are placed along two sides of each players' playing area and four temple (of matching colours) are placed along the opposing two sides. Everyone starts with an identical set-up.

Then one player picks their tiles randomly, while the other players choose the same one from their supply and then play it on their area. The tiles have paths, and the idea is to get your meeples to their matching temples, picking up any gold (two points) and diamonds (one point) on the way.

We played twice and in game one, I did well. I put down to crossroad tiles in the middle of the board and they were very useful in ferrying my meeples to where they needed to be.

Andrew 23
Joe 20
Katy 19
Ben 14

So, in the second game, I tried the same tactic again, except the crossroad tiles didn't come out. In fact, hardly any junctions at all came out, and before long I was stuck, not wanting to put down tiles nor was I able to move my men.

Halfway through the second game, Katy's cold started a coughing fit and she had to retire for a few minutes. When she came back, we insisted that she rest her throat, so it was an uncommonly mute Katy who chose the tiles and held them up for us to see. This inconvenience didn't stop her from winning, just one point ahead of Ben.

Katy 22
Ben 21
Joe 17
Andrew 8

In the other room, Cornwall was still being plundered for its natural resources, so we played Castle Crush. It was new to Ben and I, but the rules are pretty straightforward: built a castle to protect your king and general from the cudgel of doom that topples from a circular platform onto your opponent's structure.

That's the theory, anyway. The two newbies began with contrasting fortunes. My first castle proved unexpectedly strong (I'm still not sure why). But on Ben's turn he tried to attack Katy's castle, only for the cudgel to bounce off harmlessly and it ended up hitting the side of his own castle and the king and general both popped out the other side.

But after that, Ben had better luck (or was it skill) and he quickly made up lost ground. Joe seemed think he was being picked on. Perhaps he was. Either way, his strong final round castle (withstanding two hits with barely a tremor) was not strong enough and Ben dealt the decisive blow.

Ben 75
Andrew 59
Katy 59
Joe 33

Tinners' Trail had ended by now, too. Adam had done enough to overturn Ian's high scoring first and third rounds.

Adam 137
Ian 125
Andy 108

Mmm, capitalism

Tonight we numbered seven in total as we gathered around Sam's kitchen table: Martin, Ian, Katy, Andy, Joe, myself and, of course, Sam.

We began without any of the usual warm up group game, and immediately split into two groups: Sam, Andy and I played The Voyages of Marco Polo, while the others went for the Downfall if Pompeii.

Marco Polo may be a new arrival to GNN, but Andy has a fair amount of experience playing online. In fact, this was his first time playing the physical version.

At first, it looked like Andy and I had plans in motion, while Sam was bereft of goods and camels. This panicked him into making a number of high point scoring decisions, convinced that he'd be pegged back by our end of game bonuses. In fact, even when his score marker was on the other side of the board to ours, he was still predicting his own demise.

And although we did close the gap in the final round (Sam’s lead of 26 dropped to 15 by the end), it wasn't enough to catch him.

Sam 72
Andy 57
Andrew 51

In ancient Rome, it was the usual kerfuffle trying to get everyone out of Pompeii. There was a moment of excitement when it looked like the first six lava tiles would match each of the six different starting locations. But then Ian drew a duplicate and the moment passed.

In the end it was close. It usually is in Downfall Of Pompeii, but not this close.

Ian 8 saved, 10 in the volcano
Martin 8 saved, 11 in the volcano
Katy 8 saved, 12 in the volcano
Joe 7 saved

According to Martin we still appeared to be “balls deep” in Marco Polo (oh dear) so they began Marracash. Something to do with shops and top-heavy meeples. It was this game that caused Katy to ponder "Mmmm, capitalim" and so a blog title was born (although she insisted it was more like "grrr, capitalism")

Ian 5750
Martin 3750
Joe 3400
Katy 2350

By this time Marco Polo had ended and we three had chosen Take It Easy. The topics of our bingo-style callings were Magazines (from Sam), things about parapsychology (from me) and songs from a particular band that we had to identify (from Andy).

We each had a round in which we scored the least, only Sam’s least was much better than our leasts.

Sam 509
Andy 460
Andrew 443

We followed this up with a quick game of Dragon Run (very quick, with the dragon lurking near the top of the draw deck nearly every time). Poor old Sam went in looking for treasure, but came out with a handful of useless potions and some loose change.

Andy 18
Andrew 11
Sam 3

At this point they were totting up the final scores to Castle Crush. I hadn’t seen much, but I did witness Ian missing completely with one of his attempts on an enemy castle, and also Joe’s last castle getting hit and standing up fairly well, except that the two meeples it housed popped out of the back.

Martin 60
Joe 56
Katy 49
Ian 49

Martin was glad that he finally won a game, while Katy’s run of form for this evening left her feeling very unimpressed.

Since we were all together, we decided on one last game together: 6nimmt!

And what an epic it was. Lady Luck took turns in slapping each on of us in the face. “Spiral of Death” was very much the word of the game, as people succumbed to multiple beatings. After three rounds, no one had less than thirty-one points and there was just twelve points between the top six.

Joe triggered the end of the game in the next round and Ian amazingly snuck in for the win, ending his game with two clear rounds.

Ian 39
Andy 42
Andrew 50
Martin 55
Katy 60
Sam 72
Joe 77

And with that we were gone, out into the night air, with the taste of Apple Cake (thanks Sally) and the GNN whiskey (thanks Katy) still on our tongues.

Meanwhile, on the exciting Division, we see that no one has changed places except for Andy who has just edged ahead of Joe.

All the way up to eleven

Today I was bothered by a slight cold but couldn’t bear to miss a second Tuesday in a row so I arrived at Joe’s, slightly croaky, ready for some gaming glory. I was last to arrive, since I’d forgotten all the short cuts I usually take to Joe’s, and I found we were six in total that night: me, Joe, Katy, Martin, Ian, and Sam.

They were discussing potential six-player games for the night but, instead of walking into the next room and looking at Joe’s collection, Joe was looking on his phone for six-player suggestions on his and Sam’s own website. I can’t tell if this is extremely lazy or the perfect use of the internet.

Martin suggested we try his new acquisition: Deadwood. It was an old Cheapass Games game, and he found it on a wall! He said it looked good and, if it wasn't, he can just leave it on another wall.

How odd, then, that we should begin with a five-player game: Fuse. This bomb-busting dice game was introduced by Sam and he acted as the compare: explaining the rules and dealing out cards as the game progressed.

We began slowly, all too polite to take the die we needed (“No, really. I’m happy with anything.”) but we got up to speed and were able to defuse the bombs with 49 seconds of the 10 minutes remaining. This gave us a high score of 74 points!

After this, another team game: Codenames. We played one round in which cryptic crossword experts Joe and Sam as spymasters. But having experts on one side is only good if you have experts on the other. As it was, Katy and I could only get two of Joe’s audacious “Camelot, 5” clue. Sam struggled, beginning his game with a clue for only one card, just so he could get it out of the way.

The game was remarkable in that out of all the many wrong answers, none benefited the other team.

Joe, Katy, Andrew 8 (all clues cleared)
Sam, Ian, Martin 8

Finally, we did the decent thing and split into two groups of three. Sam, Ian and I returned to the vineyards for another bash at Viticulture, while Joe, Katy and Martin chose Castle Crush.

In Castle Crush, as far as I can tell, each player builds a little town to protect two little meeples, which then are subjected to the whims of a toppling battering ram. Martin noted that the table held two of the most opposite games it could possibly host. Thinky Eurogamer worker-placement next to tactile physical bludgeoning.

Us wine-growers set up swiftly, and were off to a flier. Ian and I went for early cheap deliveries just to get some money coming in. I pretty much ignored cards, though, which Sam and Ian profited heavily from.

It was a close battle, with the three of us leap-frogging each other up the score track. Halfway through, Katy looked over from her half of the table and remarked to Sam how well he was doing. “But look at all the wine Ian’s got,” Sam replied, as he poured himself a real glass of the stuff for himself.

A close battle

Castle Crush ended soonest, with Martin coming out a clear winner.

Martin 85
Katy 69
Joe 64

And they followed this by the card game 99, which Martin also won.

Martin 77
Katy 76
Joe 51

By this time, Viticulture had ended and, once again, Ian took top spot.

Ian 25
Sam 22
Andrew 20

Next up was another team game, Push It. By combining Sam’s and Martin’s sets, we were able to have a three two-player team battle around Joe’s circular table: perfect for the game.

Ian & Katy got an early lead, but then became stuck on four points while the rest of us caught up. Then Sam & Martin put together some good moves while Joe & me sort of made up the numbers.

At first we thought we should just play until seven points, but we were enjoying it so much that it was extended to the usual eleven (hence the blog title). Sam & Martin crashed through the winning line with a neat two-pointer.

Sam & Martin 12
Ian & Katy 7
Joe & Andrew 5

And we finished the evening with Skull and Roses, the simple bluff game. It was quite a short game, since Joe’s ability to read the table was second to none. He was only wrong once, and that was when he tried to bluff, but no one followed and he had to reveal his own card: a skull. He made up for that immediately afterwards by guessing seven roses out of eight. Ian managed to also get a correct call in. After that, it was just a case of who had the most cards left.

1. Joe
2. Ian
3. Martin
4= Katy
4= Andrew
5. Sam

And with that, we were done. We set off with Martin saying he’d thoroughly enjoyed every game he’d played that evening.

A glimpse at the division will only increase that contentment.