New gamer passing through

This week, six of us pitched up around Sam's kitchen table for yet another bout of gaming goodness. Sam, Martin, Ian, Katy and I were joined by Katy's friend Reevesie. He was lucky enough to be in town on a Tuesday evening and so Katy brought him along.

Our first game was Just One or, as it soon to be called, Find The Working Pen. We started well, with Pig being the opening word and "shit" being Katy's opening clue. We rattled off the correct guesses until one clue, Vacation, stymied us. We later discovered that four of us were considering "Lampoon" and Sam even wrote it down before changing his mind. In the end, none of us wrote it and Ian couldn't get the word from our sadly generic hints.

I stretched the rules a bit. When faced with "Fitzgerald" my mind went blank. I couldn't think of anything to do with that name so I wrote "nope" indicating that I'd bowed out of this round. Luckily that's how Reevesie interpreted it and he didn't spend ages agonising over how "Ella" and "Gadsby" relate to "nope". Lastly, Katy requested that we should go low-brow in her clues. Alas, her word was "Gothic" and she ended up with "Poe,'" "Shelley," and "Cathedral. " Sorry, Katy.

We got nine correct, but didn't bother checking our rank on the patronising score sheet.

Then we split into two groups. Martin and Katy introduced Reevesie to the joys of Azul. Sam, Ian and I chose Letter Tycoon. A choice that I was all in favour of until Sam leapt into an early lead by playing three seven letter words in his first three rounds. Amazing to watch but also quite galling. He had the decency to apologise after the third. Ian kept in the running with a patent that allowed him to play two words in one turn. I made a revival with the longest word of the game (Ablution) but it wasn't enough. It was a dead heat between Sam and Ian, with Sam winning on a tie breaker.

Sam 53 (34 in patents)
Ian 53 (32)
Andrew 47

Down the other end of the table, Azul ended with Martin remarking that if he'd known Reevesie would be such a threat, he might have been meaner sooner.

Reevesie 93
Martin 76
Katy 60

After this was a pause as we debated our next game while eating crisps standing up. Next, Ian, Katy and Sam played Menara, the fun game of tower building according to an ever shifting set of criteria.

Martin, Reevesie and I went for the hot craze of the year, Senators. After a rules walkthrough from Martin, Reevesie was transported back in time to ancient Rome. We connived and cajoled, extorted and auctioned. I got an early lead thanks to a cheap senator in the game's first war and then I cashed in a set of cards (30 talents, very nice) and bought two more.

There was a lovely moment of synchronicity during our respective games. Martin, annoyed at Reevesie's strategy, muttered "You son of a..." and then Sam accidentally finished his sentence while reacting to the reveal of a new card by saying "Shit."

Reevesie came back into it and drew level with me while Martin seemed to be languishing. Albeit languishing with some very high value cards in front of him. There was a decent amount of extortion and Martin refused to let any go. Then, on the eve of the third war, he cashed in two sets for a handsome 44 talents and he bought three senators, bounding over us and into first place . Would we have a chance to catch him? Nope, the fourth war came out next and victory was assured.

Martin 9
Reevesie 7
Andrew 7

Sadly, I was unable to exploit the fact that I was the only one not distracted by checking their phone every minute to see if Liverpool had beaten Barcelona.

While we were finishing off, Sam, Ian and Katy successfully completed their tower. They admired it for a second or two before trying to build higher, using cards as impromptu floors. It didn't last long.

Then they played a one-round game of Kariba, another new flavour of the season.

Sam 19
Ian 18
Katy 12

At this point Ian left and the five of us launched into a game of Raj. "Do I hate this game?" asked Katy, her memory of certain board games addled by a year abroad. I couldn't believe anyone would hate Raj and I assured her that she didn't. I was wrong.

Raj served up its usual range of crazy injustices. Katy cruelly picked up a -5 tile despite playing a fifteen (10, 10, 13, 13, 15) and when something similar happened to me, she insisted that I write it down too. So here it is: I got the -5 with 11, 11, 11, 11, 14. An amazing and wonderful sight... for four of us, at least. Sam got lucky in the last round (or is it skill?) getting a nine tile with 15, 15, 6, 6, 4. This helped him leap from fourth to first in the final round while I fell from first to third.

Sam 41
Martin 37
Andrew 30
Reevesie 23
Katy 7

And now Katy and Reevesie left. This meant that there was one more game left for the remaining trio. We chose The Mind. Round one and two were tough. I think the first card to be played in round one was 68, and then we lost a life in round two.

But then we got into a groove. By round six we still had two lives and, despite round nine throwing an abundance of cards in the nineties at us, we got to the Dark Mind with two lives intact. We didn't last long, however, since we were dead by the end of round two but even so we'd defied luck enough times to make it feel like an achievement.

And then we were done. Thanks to Sam for hosting, and thanks to all for attending, especially Reevesie. Hope to see you again sometime. We're here every Tuesday!