But this week, after colds continue to play havoc with the fixture list, five of us convened in Easton with Adam making up the numbers, and Sam absent having only just recovered from illness.
We began with a new game, given to Steve by his workmates as a leaving present. Apparently, buying thee board games involved a non-gamer going into Area 51, which seemed to be a bit of a traumatic occasion for them. One game, Spartacus, was too complicated and hadn't been learnt, so instead we went for a card game by Uwe "Bohnanza" Rosenburg, Sole Mio.
Anja had read half of the rules, so we set off, not entirely sure what we were doing but nevertheless enjoying calling out the cards we were playing in an Italian accent. But then, as more rules were read, we learnt that we'd been playing the rules wrong. Not slightly wrong, where we could stumble on and make do, but really quite wrong, needing a whole new start.
We didn't start again. We were too keen to begin tonight's main event, namely Princes Of Florence. I haven't played this game since the pre-blog days, and Joe and I needed a reminder of the rules. Steve went into this game complaining how bad he was at it and how he was bound to finish last.
He got off to a lightning start, leaping into an early lead with his jesters. But as was often noted, this is a game that doesn't take kindly to errors. We allowed Joe and Steve to take back their goes once they realised they'd made a mistake, although Joe decided that on reflection, his mistake was probably what he wanted to do all along.
I made a spirited attempt and wasn't far off the pace halfway through, but I ran out of options by the end of the game, and found myself with nothing to do in the last round. Anja saw both of the prestige point bonuses go up in smoke as she failed to achieve either of their criteria. As such, we both came last.
Rival bars of chocolate stare each other down over a game of "Princes...
Adam came in third, but it was a tussle at the top between Steve and Joe. Steve the pessimist just nabbed a win on a money tie-breaker.
Steve 61
Joe 61
Adam 55
Andrew 53
Anja 53
On the form table, Steve gains a "1" and loses a "6" and so, like a spaceship catapulted around Jupiter's field of gravity, he's launched up the the table to take top spot with just one month to go until the end of the season.
| Points | ||||||
| Steve | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 10 |
| Sam | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 10 |
| Joe | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 11 |
| Hannah | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 11 |
| Anja | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 11 |
| Adam | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 13 |
| Andrew | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 14 |
| Jon | 3 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Quentin | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 21 |
And on the monthly Division, we see that Sam has taken first place from me in terms of points, while Joe has gained top spot in points ratio from Anja. James holds onto his first place in the Olympics table.
