That sinking feeling

On a train with cack wifi - will add pics this evening

Laura was our host this week, and with Andrew a late withdrawal the blogging reverted to my (Sam's) sweaty hands.

Joe kindly gave me a lift over - despite Laura and I being practically neighbours, it was a relief to the foot. After some breaking-and-entering shenanigans, we found the kitchen replete with hairy men, and Laura. Katy was due a bit later, and Andy could only stay until 9, so there was a bit of boardgame jiggerypokery (BGJP) as we debated options, before Martin, Andy and Gareth played Longboards and Laura, Ian, Joe and I settled on Heckmeck (also known as Pickonimo, AKA the Hammy game)

Laura had child-related distractions, and I had bad luck/decisions, so in the early running it looked like Ian v Joe. Then Laura and I struck back, but not that effectively, and though I stole a tile from Ian Joe's stash was insurmountable. 

Joe 10
Sam 7
Ian 4
Laura 2

They were still playing Longboards so Laura introduced us to Roll For It, the game of dice-rolling to claim cards. Initially it seemed underwhelming, as each turn is a single roll of the dice and choosing where to allot them, if at all, to hopefully claim cards if you're the first person to complete the card demands. 

But as the game continued it got faster and funnier with Katy - who arrived as we started - desperate for six 2's as the rest of us fought it out over another card. As we turned from perplexed to engaged, Longboards finished...

Gareth 41
Martin 39
Andy 33

..and they started playing HIT, which I didn't get any photos of. We were too busy chucking dice and shrieking by then. Eventually Ian claimed the win (22) followed by me (17), Katy (15) Laura on 12 and Joe back on a paltry 5 points. He would have some serious vengeance however, later in the evening. Meantime Gareth absolutely rinsed Andy and Martin at Hit:

Gareth 144
Martin 77
Andy 67

Andy's pumpkin hour was looming but we thought we could squeeze in a quick game of Viva Pamplona! After some inevitable rules-clarifications, we were off! 

Andy appeared to be the early front-runner with his strategy of staying ahead of the bull and grouping runners together worked well: he was rarely pushable and therefore (this is the rule I missed Saturday) you couldn't squeeze points out of him (when you push a runner, the owner gives you a point or two). I did okay out of the first two scoring rounds, but as the bull rampaged past the halfway point I fell behind and kept rolling low dice, stuck behind a pile of fucking tomatoes. Gareth was taking a lot of pushing around at the back too, but staged a mini-recovery. I needed the bull - now invisible to me beyond a mound of vegetables - to not move, but it bundled it's way in to the arena and ended the game. Surprisingly Andy didn't win - it was the quiet man Joe!

Joe 43
Andy 37
Martin 30
Gareth 18
Sam 17

At the other end of the table, they finished Forbidden Island around the same time. Katy announced proudly they sank the island, but won anyway. So distracted was I by the Running of the Bulls that I hadn't witnessed any of this, so hopefully we'll get a mini-epic in the comments. 

Andy had to go, so the four remaining Bull Runners set up Mille Fiori, a game I recalled being relatively straightforward (apart from the boats) but felt bamboozled by when on his very first go, Martin took three turns and scored about 30 points as the rest of us watched in horror. I stared at the boards, stared at my cards, and questioned the wisdom of agreeing to play it.

But wily Joe has been here before. He has a rock solid record with Mille Fiori and as the game played out over the next 45mins or so he shrewdly pegged Martin back, pulling off a dramatic move every time Martin surged away again. We had our fleeting moments but otherwise Gareth and I were in a fight for third. The ending couldn't have been more dramatic, as Joe finally bounded ahead to Martin's panicked cries. But on the final go, he pulled out a double turn, moved his ship and pushed past Joe Berger for the win!

Martin 225
Joe 224
Sam 209
Gareth 174

Katy Laura and Ian, meanwhile, had played Marrakech not once, but twice: I think the second time they did the evil variant. Katy won the first (then Laura, then Ian) and Ian was maxi-evil for the second, trailed by Laura and then Katy in third. 

I had a big day the next day today and my foot was complaining a bit already so I hobbled off, aided by Gareth who also needed to get home. The others stayed on for a crack at So Clover, and pulled off a maximum-pointer! Go GNN. 

A la Karten

 It's been a while for me since I was in Martin's kitchen, but this was a welcome return as Martin was keen to offload some old books that he'd left on the pavement outside. I didn't see anything I wanted, but once inside, Martin obviously had one already in mind for me. "There's a Japanese one," he said, and went to get it for me. I think everyone picked up something.

And by "everyone" I mean Joe, Steve (arriving later), Adam H, Adam T, Ian as well as myself and the host.

We began as a sextet with Heckmeck am Kartenmeck, which is a bit like For Sale and Raj and, of course, Heckmeck. The first chance we got there was stealing a-plenty with everyone involved, either as theif or victim.

Then in round three, three zero tiles came out. A tricky situation, except for card-poor Joe who passed instantly and used a zero to cover his 34 tile.

At the end, I only had three tiles. Meanwhile, Adam H only had five and he showed us all how the game should be played.

Adam H 30

Adam T 27

Joe 21

Martin 21

Ian 20

Andrew 16

By now it was getting quite warm and the seven of us moved outside to admire Martin's dusty garden furniture and rubber chips on the ground.

We split into two groups. Joe, Steve and Adam H played La Corsa. The rest of us were introduced to American Bookshop. Martin explained the rules and that we should never play against Katy whose supernatural ability at this game defies explanation.

It's an interesting game. Very swingy, with each round offering up differing amounts for the winner. I came a distant last despite winning one round and coming second in another.

As we entered the final round, Martin was on 11, Adam T 1, and Ian 6. A small margin for this game, although I, back in last with -14, was only playing for pride.

It was a photo finish, with Martin foiled by the last card as Adam T nabbed 11 to take the win.

Adam T 12

Martin 10

Ian 5

Andrew -7

By now it was quite dark. La Corsa was in its final stages too as Steve put down his cards and said "read 'em and weep" and Adam H remarked "I can't read 'em."

I asked afterwards what the score was and Adam and Steve gave two different answers. Both agreed he came last, though.

Joe 20

Adam H 18

Steve 15 or 12, depends on who you ask

Back inside and Adam T, Joe and Martin played Sumatra, and Steve, Adam H, Ian and I played Whale Riders. It began in controversial style as I picked a dolphin as my piece, not realising it was yellow and I had to swap with Adam.

I sped off, zipping past lots of cheap pots in order to get first dibs further along the track. Adam, meanwhile, hung back, picking up what he wanted at his leisure while he completed contract after contract. He even ignored a free pearl in order to more efficiently finish another card. He did six in the end, compared to my three. But it was Ian and his middle way who took first prize, leaving Adam to rue his earlier choice: if he’d taken that pearl, he’d have won on a tie-breaker.

Ian 21

Adam H

Andrew 19

Steve 18

I left after Whale Riders, with Sumatra still in full swing. According to a text, Sumatra ended…

Joe 65

Martin 64

Adam T 62

Ian, Adam H and Steve were sill perusing the games closet when I left and it seems they chose Marrakech. Adam messaged me the results and it looks like Ian pipped Adam to first place again.

Ian 58

Adam H 56

Steve bankrupt, owing Adam two coins that would have won him the game

Then I think Steve must’ve gone since they played a five player So Clover, scoring 28/30 after a mix up with Forcefield and Magic/Sheild/Bubble. I saw some nice clue/couplets in the photo. Good work, chaps.

Finally, Joe and Martin ended the night with a game of Cinderella's Dance, which sounds delightful but I really have no idea.

Joe 3

Martin 2

Overstocked and Underllama-ed

This week was Laura's turn to host, but perhaps because of the heat (and Joe's being in France) we were down to five when the allotted hour arrived - as well as Laura, there were Ian, Adam H, Martin and myself (Sam). Mostly the introductory talk was about Laura and Lucy's fridge, being as it was enormous and semi-sentient, with a screen on it that could play music and order shopping. We all liked the fridge. 

But there were games to be played too, and with Katy coming later we kicked things off with Martin's new card game of 1980's toy crazes, Overstocked. There are super-simple rules here, but tricky decisions: over six rounds everyone plays one of six cards from their hand before revealing simultaneously, and they're then resolved in number order. On your turn you have a choice - add the card to your tableau, which will (hopefully) get you points, or add it to a shared tableau, which defines how much: when all cards have been played, you multiple your largest group of x on your tableau by the largest matching group in the central one.

The catch - of course there's a catch - is that the largest group on that shared tableau at game-end scores minus points, having blown it's popularity out on a wave of oversaturation. So Overstocked contains a wide seam of dickery as everyone tries to devalue each other's wares, a fact that made me encourage everyone to screw over Martin's teddies. 

Sadly, they didn't listen. 

Martin 26
Laura 25
Sam 12
Ian 10
Adam H -10

Then we had a quick blast through Cross Clues whilst Laura generously plied me with spaghetti bolognese. Fortunately I had a combo (Firefighter/Salad) which I had no idea what to do with, so I made the most of our ten minutes by eating. There were some tricky words out there, but I'm glad to say it wasn't a shocking repeat of mine Joe and Katy's four out of 25. 

I canvassed for Powerships next, hoping to break my staccato run of last-place finishes, and everyone was amenable. We went through the standard bewilderment over assembling the board, then Martin explained the rules to Laura, and we were away. 

Ian and Martin sped off early with Laura and I tailing at a little distance. Would my plan to take all the marker planets wide prove a foolish one? At the moment, it was Adam lagging at the back, and seemed to be shaping up a two horse race between Hickman and Griffiths. While Adam was first to crash, around the second marker the rest of us sped, although I - needing to roll a 2 or a 3 - rolled a 1 and my plans turned to cosmic sand: I crashed as well, and watched Adam speed by me. 

Martin made a miscalculation over the final planet and shot past it, allowing Ian in for the win. Martin recovered for second and Adam swept in third. It only remained for Laura to nab 4th with me still trying to get out of second gear on the other side of the solar system. 

Then disaster! She missed the planet (above, Laura pink) and had to turn a wide circle in mitigation. Sensing an opportunity, I (blue, above, in the distance) swept home and celebrated my fourth place like I'd just destroyed the Death Star. 

1 Ian

2 Martin

3 Adam

4 Sam

5 Laura

Katy had arrived in time to see the dramatic finale play out, and now - whilst Laura and I aired our misgivings about the idea - she joined Martin and Ian in pushing for Wandering Towers. 

In fairness, even though it was chaotic and frustrating in equal measure, it was also hilarious. I think it took us about an hour of complaining, agonising, cursing and wondering in equal measure. I was first to get a wizard in the Raven Tower, but after that spent a lot of time with visible wizards miles away from reaching it. Martin forgot where his wizards were, and Katy made the mistake of having a conversation with Lucy and returning to the table to ask where her wizards had gone. How we laughed at the idea of charity. Ian triggered the finale whilst I was away in the loo and by the time I returned I had no more turns, and Adam had already won and it was a contest for second. "I just need to roll an eight!" Martin said hopefully.

1 Adam

2 Ian

3 Everyone else, although Katy wanted it noted she had four full potions and was therefore more 3rd.

We split into two groups of three, with Adam and I introducing Katy to Llamaland (without objectives) and Laura, Martin and Ian trying their hands at High Score. 

Katy loved the llamas, especially as we weren't eating them. I loved tesselating. Adam loved winning. Although I set the pace llama-wise, Adam's cunning guile somewhat incongruously suited llama farming and even the arrival of Chai, who walked across the board, couldn't disrupt his chain of thought. 

Adam shrugged off the interruption, and I snagged another llama. Whilst Katy was concerned at my ungulate overwhelm, I ran out of options on the last two turns just as Adam's strategizing came to fruition:

Adam 66

Sam 53

Katy 49 

Whilst Ian had ousted Martin and Laura at High Score (15-13-12) and Martin had his revenge in a three-player rematch of Overstocked: 

Martin 54

Ian 20

Laura 10

Then Adam and Ian left, bound for Easton, and the four of us settled on Laura's Ebay find of Marrakech to finish. Martin was keen on the dickish version, but this was vetoed. Marrakech has plenty of inadvertent (and occasionally vertent) dickery anyway. Omens looked good for Laura as while the three of us squabbled over territory, she built an enormous, sprawling carpet across a third of the board. It was so big that we kept running away from it until there was no option but to embrace the peril. However despite a couple of hauls, we got away with relatively little taxation and struck back, carpet-wise.

Martin and Katy were soon cash-poor and complained about being oppressed. Laura and I agreed oppression was fun from our perspective. However, thanks to some spawny rolling it was me taking the honours at the end of the day!

Sam 55

Laura 50

Katy 39

Martin 19

Another GNNight concluded, then, with much fun had in the July heat. Until next week!

Twitch Gaming

This week, four gamers congregated in Easton where Adam hosted in a house that I barely recognised from last time. Kitchen, stairs, sofa, it all seemed so new. Katy and Joe weren’t so new, I’d seen them only a couple of weeks before, but still a welcome sight.

We began with Marrakech, a favourite on BGA, but my first time playing with real materials. But since we’re accustomed to BGA setting everything up for us, we had to read the rule book (like a bunch of Luddites) to make sure we were doing things correctly.

We played the nice version, where a player can turn Assam before rolling and moving. Joe built a huge 12-tile carpet in the centre of the board which we then circled around cautiously, never daring to set foot on it. It didn’t pay out until the very end of the game (maybe twice) but it looked impressive.

Adam 50

Joe 46

Andrew 38

Katy 33

Then we had to put the thing away! And Marrakech The Real Board Game is a bit tricky with all these fuzzy-felt rectangles refusing to go back into the white paper band they came from.

After this was a new game, Wingspan. It is, as it says on the box, an engine building game: a get stuff to get stuff kind of thing. Albeit a game with lovely illustrations and pastel coloured eggs that look good enough to eat.

In the game you get food (from dice that are rolled using a pretty but unnecessary dice tower. Then use the food to build birds (we didn't bother with accurate terminology), use the birds to get eggs and then score points. These birds can also be activated for extra actions, as described with lots of text on cards. The cards also tell you the wingspan of each bird. This has no purpose during the game but it is a tie-breaker at the end. Is this the only board game named after a tie-breaker?

Once underway, the rules are pretty straightforward and it was all quite familiar. There was end of round scoring and hidden end of game bonuses. There was a moment when Katy challenged a move I'd made except I'd been copying Adam so instead of trying to undo the game untill then, Katy and Joe got an egg to even out our advantage. Of course, a computer would never let us make that move in the first place.

I was also chastised for asking Adam about his half-carpeted stairs when it was his turn, threatening to make an already slow game even slower.

And that was its main failing. It was a little too sedate with only limited interaction. Joe was frustrated by Katy picking up the only worm (or snake, as I insisted) from the dice tower but then he realised that the game allows you to exchange any two food for one anyway.

It ended at about eleven o'clock, which surprised us all. Still, it was very mellow.

Andrew 83
Joe 78
Adam 77
Katy 75

Adam blamed his third place on a bird that gave away seeds whenever he activated it. Generosity was never Adam’s style. Apart from when it comes to hosting, of course! Thanks, Adam and thanks Joe and Katy too. See you all/some soon.

Texas Lockdown

The rules of lockdown may have changed to allow six people to meet outside, but the six gamers meeting up this evening were still very much in virtual space.

I arrived at a regrettably late quarter past eight and watched as Sam, Ian, Andy, Katy and Martin play Cubirds. It was Katy's first game and she was mightily crestfallen to discover that she had misinterpreted slight differences in a type of bird as two different species. Meanwhile, Martin pondered that Cubirds doesn't scale up well to five players. Katy said she was enjoying it, and then promptly won.

Katy 1
Sam, Martin, Ian, Andy 0 each (or 0 shared between them if you prefer)

As a sextet we considered splitting into two groups but preferred to stay together for a swift For Sale. After a peculiar bidding round where most of the big cards came out in the last round, Martin said he had the kind of hand that meant he didn't have to make any decisions. 

Katy's internet connection vanished just as she was about to select her final card of the game. At least it gave the climax a little bit of a build up.

Andy 51
Katy 47
Ian 47
Martin 46
Andrew 39
Sam 39

Then Sam left and the four of us chose Texas Showdown. I played while cooking a late supper. Katy made pointed remarks about how well her side of the table were doing until the end of the second round when the score was 5-5-5-5-4.

Martin kept asking Andy to lead whenever he had the chance, even though it usually ended badly for him. I seemed to do well in my state of semi-distraction, but Katy was made to eat her boastful words when she was first to hit the game-ending score of 10 tricks.

Andrew 7
Martin 9
Ian 9
Katy 11
Andy 12

Then we rattled off two quick games of Vulture Culture…

Katy 18
Andy 10
Ian 9
Martin 4
Andrew -1

Ian 18
Andrew 16
Katy 10
Martin -1
Andy -5

Before I left the chat. I logged back into BGA to watch them play Marrakech, though. It was pretty even by the time I left them, so I guess Andy was able to put together a huge point-scoring carpet in the latter part of the game.

Andy 63
Katy 39
Mart 35
Ian 23

kthxbai!

Chips with everything

At eight o’clock I arrived, and saw that one game - Vulture Culture - had been completed with the scores looking a little curious:

Katy 7

Sam -1

Martin -2

Ian -99

Andy -99

It took a while to work out, but Ian and Andy had tied for first place with 18 each, but the rules of VC say that ties cancel each other out, I suppose, so they were sent packing with a somewhat unnecessarily high punishment.

Along with the above mentioned five and myself was also Joe. We all dove into a seven player game of 6nimmt because misery loves company. Most miserable at first were Sam and Katy who both reminisced about how good they used to be at this game. However, Sam put a halt to his free fall while Katy kept on plummeting, relying on Andy and Ian to have worse luck than her to avoid last place. 

Martin came first despite the rest of us talking up Joe's chances. 'Only six points behind!" we'd say, encouragingly. That's about as close as he got, though.

Martin 48

Joe 39

Sam 36

Andrew 30

Katy 11

Andy 7

Ian -16

Next up was a dose of analysis paralysis as we struggled over what to play next. Joe even went so far as to suggest a two player game. Three of us, Martin, Katy and I, went off to a new Google hangout and wait to see who joined us for some clever trick taking game. Then we realised we would have no idea if they'd decided to play a four player game. 

Then Andy popped in, while Ian, Sam and Joe played Ninety nine. The four of us played Chip It, which is not a golf-themed card game, but a game involving disposing of two distinct resources in your hand such that you run out of both before anyone else.

The theme chosen for this abstract card game concerns nachos, jalapenos of various values and cheese. Use them together to put down sets of cards of the same value, using the cheese to adjust values of cards upwards.

We had no idea what a winning strategy might be. Go big early on, get lots of cheese and then spend the rest of the whittling the cheese away? We played twice and Andy won both times. Still not entirely sure how.

Then Katy, Joe and Sam all left, with the game of Ninety-nine abandoned. The remaining four chose Marrakech. Once again Andy began by dropping off carpets and then sending Assam off in the other direction and once again he formed a big old mega carpet out of those pieces he'd left behind. I (once again) would have been on the receiving end of Andy’s evil cloth empire, so I kept sending Assam into the corner that was furthest away. Happily, I happened to have a fair bit of carpet down there, so that worked out fine for me.

Andrew 68

Andy 32

Martin 30 plus cash

Ian 30

And so that was that. We logged off and went to bed. I had a dream that I was gaming online again and Ian was cutting a shape out of a folded up piece of paper. When he was done, he opened it up for us to see - it was a snowman. So I’ll see you all, snowman or no snowman,  next week

My year of meets

I logged on at eight to find nine gamers in attendance or just joining. Such was the attraction of our two anniversaries: Katy's birthday and our year of gaming under lockdown rules. Before I'd arrived, five had already played a game of Vulture Culture, the new theme for Raj which loses any airs of Indian luxury in exchange for cartoony graphics of birds. I wasn't there but BGA lists the scores as...

Adam H 25

Ian 10

Sam 3

Katy 2

Martin 0

Once we were all together (Andy, Joe and Adam T were the other late arrivals) we played 6nimmt. Sam fell into a death spiral, and I pointed out that that’s the worst kind of spiral there is. Katy remarked that “6nimmt is like life - it all depends on what other people do.” With age comes wisdom, I suppose.

Andy 52

Adam H 38

Andrew 32

Katy 17

Adam T 16

Joe 16

Ian 11

Martin 9

Sam -3

After this, we split into two groups. Well, technically we split into three because Adam H left, becoming a little group all on his own, but for the purposes of playing games, we became two groups. Martin, Adam T, Joe and Katy sped off the playingcards.io for a game of Nokosu Dice.

We four (Andy, Sam, Ian and me) played Marrakech. Andy informed us that the day after I went bust, an identical fate befell him. I got anxious that history might repeat itself when Ian started off by rolling fours all the time, skipping past my carpets and leaving me without an income. Luckily everyone’s carpets were spread out across the board, with no real mega-carpets until Sam put together a six-square carpet in the last couple of rounds, so I managed to end the game with some money remaining.

Ian 46

Andy 41

Sam 40

Andrew 29

Next up was 7 Wonders. I chose my side of the board simply because the weather was nicer. I then proceeded to play an exemplary game of 7 Wonders, which is a shame because I’m not sure what I did right as opposed to all the other games I've played. Maybe the weather helped after all.

Andrew 64

Andy 45 + cash

Sam 45

Ian 41

Next Sam left and Ian, Andy and I played Vulture Culture. I was glad to see Raj on BGA but less so when I found out it only lasted one round.

Ian 20

Andy 12

Andrew 8

Then we played Cubirds, which ended 1-0-0 to Andy. The other group were still playing Nokosu Dice but said that Katy was so far ahead (she had 68 to Adam’s 9, Martin’s 6 and Joe’s 5) that they’d decided to end once round three was over. So the three of us banged out a quick game of Butterfly while we waited for them.

Andy 53

Ian 40

Andrew 19

But they saw that we had started a new game, so they ploughed on to end the game properly even if it was a foregone conclusion.

Katy 95

Adam 45

Martin 43

Joe 13

I went to bed as did Joe, and the remaining five saw out Katy’s birthday with a couple of rounds of Vulture Culture, ending with identical placings both times.

Martin 26

Andy 14

Adam T 10

Ian -2

Katy -8

Martin 16

Andy 14

Adam T 6

Ian 4

Katy 0

Thanks everyone. See you next week for another year of lockdown gaming!

The Gary Lineker of Marrakech

I arrived at 8 o'clock and watched Martin, Andy, Katy and Ian play No Thanks. I watched enough to see Ian try to send a 6 card around twice. "I'm tired," he sighed. He still came in second, though. Katy was stiffed by a last minute 35.

Andy -37

Ian -43

Martin -54

Katy -85

Next we played The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. This was on playingcards.io and it was very nicely designed. "You can tell it's not one if mine, can't you?" Said Martin. But it wasn't just a rethemed version of the original Crew, he went on to assure us. The missions are more interesting too.

Having said that, though, our very first mission was "win the first trick" which was so basic that we just assumed we'd completed it and went straight onto mission two. 

We sailed on pretty serenely, with the only hitch when I misremembered the rules and dubbed myself captain despite not having the four of trumps. It was Ian who did, but I must have been louder in my assertion and drowned him out. Ian's mike was muffled for much of the evening, which at least gave him an appropriate subnautical feel.

Happily it didn't matter in this instance who was commander. In fact, if anything, we'd made it harder for ourselves.

We finished after mission five and Katy signed off, explaining that her internet was showing signs of imminent collapse. We began playing Cubirds. This set collecting game involves putting birds on wires that match other birds on the same wire in order to pick up the birds in-between the two matching birds. Once you have enough birds of a certain type in your hand you can fly away as a flock, keeping one or two cards as a means of scoring.

It was nice. Quite genteel, really.

Andy 1

Andrew 0

Ian 0

Martin 0

Finally, Ian said he was amenable to one more before he hit the sack, so we played Marrakech. And what a historical game it was. Andy started with a curious strategy of scattering his carpets far and wide. This paid dividends as later on he was able to join them together to make one huge carpet. One that I kept landing on. You see, Martin, in his attempt at getting points, kept steering Assam/Andy back to his carpet which was next to Andy’s carpet thus leaving Assam/me in an impossible situation. This has happened before, but not to such a devastating effect. I was knocked out of the game (player elimination? At GNN?!) and watched the rest of them have fun without me, eventually covering over my last piece of carpet ensuring I scored no points at all.

Andy 64

Ian 40

Martin 38

Andrew 0

I refused to give Andy any credit, though, insisting it was all Martin’s doing. This gave rise to the blog title and my claim that Andy was the Gary Lineker of Marrakech - tapping in from six yards after someone else had done all the hard work. I should have been more gracious in defeat, but if I’d been like that, I wouldn’t have a blog title.

At this point, Ian had to go to bed and I needed a lie down too. Next week is the one year anniversary of GNN going into lockdown. I don’t think anything is planned, though since that would clash with Katy’s birthday. Either way, see you all then.

No(kosu) Dice

I logged on at eight o'clock to find five gamers already deep into the third era in 7 Wonders. I soon learnt that this era had lasted longer than most were expecting, with Katy's internet once again proving unreliable. The other four were Martin, Sam, Ian and Adam H.

Adam, who was last with only 17 points, was perfectly happy to abandon the game. But Katy’s efforts bore fruit and the game finally ended:

Sam 64

Martin 53

Katy 50

Adam 41

Ian 40

During this game Joe and Andy also arrived, making us an eight-gamer group. Sam only had another twenty or so minutes so we split into two groups for a couple of quick games before regrouping again. Both of those games were Marrakech. I played against Ian, Adam and Katy and Adam won thanks to his not inconsiderable patch of carpet in the middle of the board. Katy made a few peculiar tactical choices: at one point putting her carpet behind Assam therefore missing out on a guaranteed four points. 

Adam 46

Ian 44

Andrew 39

Katy 31

The other game ended

Sam 48

Joe 37

Martin 31

Andy 30

And so with two convincing wins under his belt, Sam set off to prepare things for his son’s birthday while the rest of us formed two new groups. Martin suggested they try a new crazy Japanese trick-taking game, to which Katy agreed with superhuman speed. So those two and Joe and Ian set off for playingcards.io to play Nokosu Dice while Andy, Adam and I went for Alhambra.

Early on, Andy remarked that I kept leaving 4-1 money cards for Adam to pick up. But, as they say, lucky in money, unlucky in Discord and Adam dropped in and out of our chatroom. Mind you, there was precious little chatting going on. I was concentrating pretty hard and, although leading after round two, I was not sure of my position. I was decidedly unnerved by Adam and Andy’s larger collection of money cards, expecting them to unleash an unstoppable combo of building acquisitions. 

As I later found out, so did Andy, but his plans were always foiled by either Adam or I taking just what he was after. He wouldn’t buy unless it was for exact money and he ended the game with 27 green, 26 red, 24 blue and 14 yellow!

Andrew 153

Adam 129

Andy 116

After this Adam left and we asked the other group how close they were to finishing. Martin said pretty far and that they’d probably finish for the evening after that. So Andy and I said our goodbyes and logged off. 

Actually, we didn’t. Andy stayed online for a game of Abyss against random BGA people and I watched the end of Nokosu Dice while eating my crisps as loudly as I liked, trying to work out the rules. It was a trick taking game, but one where you could use dice as well. Other than that, even simple things defied explanation. Still, it must have been complicated for them too, judging by the pauses between moves.

Katy 66

Joe 50

Martin 40

Ian 35

And that was that for the night. Everyone left playingcards.io one by one until there was nothing left but the sound of the wind in the trees. A quietly poignant moment.

Thanks all, see you next week.