Oh my Guadalajara!

It may be the Christmas bash tomorrow, but when a window of opportunity opens, Sam and I are through it quicker than two house-thieves who’d spotted PS4 boxes being left in the recycling just the other week.

So tonight it was the two of us, facing of across a map of Mexico, some wooden trains and cardboard hexagons. Yes, it was Railways of the World: Mexico that lay before us. And if you think about it, so many games have been based on them and wars have been fought over them, it’s almost as if maps were designed for conflict.

Anyway, that’s enough philosophy for one week. Sam and I had more important things to worry about. Like how to move those coloured cubes around our network. We began slowly, as we studied the lay of the land. Mexico City looked like a good bet, but I thought the Pacific coast also held promise. Sam went for the big city, and I went for the mountain route.

Sam started well, and I fretted about my long term plan coming too late. But after a while, I started moving cubes around, even though Sam’s near monopoly in the south meant he often benefited too.

During the game, we both completed two routes each for 11 bonus points, and we got our baron bonuses, too (me, 6; Sam, 8) but thanks to my more-powerful engine I came home a winner once again. My second RotW win in a row. Hurrah!

Andrew 92
Sam 88

After this, Sam only had a little time left, and so suggested a game of Contract Whist, with a couple of pounds in the pot, just to make it interesting.

This time, it was me who leapt into an early lead, thanks to a successfully predicted clean sweep of all eight tricks early on. After that, it was up to Sam to whittle away at my lead in increments. At one round, he said he could level the scores if I chose “1” and failed, and he chose “3” and succeeded. I looked at my hand, and chose the only sensible option: 1.

He looked at his cards, he looked at the scores written down in my sketchbook, and then back at his cards. Then he chose “3”. Was it destiny? Was Sam fated to win the game in a stunning comeback? Indeed he was, since that’s exactly what happened, levelling the scores, and from there Sam went on to take the game in the last two rounds. A marvellous performance from a hopeless position.

Sam 57
Andrew 48

See you all tomorrow!

Every whist way but loose

Sam had some free time this Saturday and, with Everton drawing 0-0 with Crystal Palace, he wasn’t about to waste it on reading and re-reading football reports on the internet. SO we met up for a quick game or two. At first we had a look at Sumeria, a new game picked up for cheap second-hand, but the cardboard bits still hadn’t been un-popped. That’s as close to pristine as a board game gets.

It wasn’t designed for two, but we had a go, anyway. It’s like a mini-Taj Mahal. Winning iin the top three areas gives you the chance to pick up tokens. Collect sets of these to win. But by entering an area, you can push it up the list, so that it may become one of the top three areas, displacing others as it does.

It’s okay. Very hard to tell. It clearly isn’t for two, since the order of areas doesn’t move around enough. But it showed promise. Sam won by 50 something to 30 something.

After this was Lords of Waterdeep. An old favourite, and one that I did terribly at last time. And I got that sinking feeling early on again, as Sam immediately picked up the Lieutenant, effectively giving him an extra go each round.

I went into panic mode which, it turns out, is the correct mode to play LoW in. I pretty much ignored my bonuses and instead went for more quests than Bilbo Baggins on crack. I was helped by completing the quest that allowed me to use an area already used by opponent, somewhat lessening the Sam’s numerical advantage.

Sam obviously had the lord that gave him a bonus for each building, so I was even more keen to put a distance between him and me on the score-track, since I’d been paying no attention to my own bonuses. I managed to pick up 50 points in round seven, and then I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the new quests in the last round all needed money: something Sam had none of. In the end, it was close, but I kept my nose in front.

Andrew 181
Sam 170

Then we had a little under half an hour. An akward amount of time, especially with the few games we had to chose from, so we went for Contract Whist. Sam decided to make it more interesting with a pound stake.

It was a lot of fun. There’s a reason why these old games haven’t disappeared, and I think I appreciate the clever balance of risk and reward in Whist even more now that I’ve played some Eurogames.

Especially since I won, 73-43. Or, in other words, £2- £0. Oh ho ho ho.

And so the evening ended, and as Sam set off, I still had the tune in my mind of that eighties power ballad that we changed the words so it was a little more... about anal sex. I'm not proud of it, but that’s what board games, beer and Saturday nights will do to a man.