What will a zen do if a shin can sen?

I arrived at after eight at Mel’s to find eight gamers already squeezed into one room. I had already missed a game of Just One which ended with 7 right out of 7. "We bossed it," Martin informed me.

Meanwhile, as I arrived, Joe, Ben and Gareth had already started a game of Zendo and the rest were waiting for me before deciding on their next choice. In the event, Sam, Katy and Mel played Shinkansen which is, I guess, about building trains across Japan while Martin, Ian and I played Sheepy Time.

Our game was an odd one. The first two rounds were over quickly as the nightmare tore around the track like a demon possessed. Martin and I were able to pick up points while Ian languished in third. Then I provoked the ire of my opponents by using a dream tile’s special power to push both of them on to the same square as the nightmare, waking them up and taking all the points in that round for myself. 

In round four, both Martin and I pass our pillows but daren't stop for fear of losing to the other. Then the nightmare suddenly shifted and ended the round before we could do anything. 

In round five, I got past my pillow and, seeing the nightmare in the second half of the track, I finished. Then Martin also passed his pillow, went further than I did and finished too. This left Ian, who'd had no luck all game with a mountain to climb. And climb it he did. An astonishing feat of brinkmanship sent him round twice, maybe three times more, and he sped past his pillow by miles and clocked up an improbable win.

Ian 7 spaces past his pillow

Martin 3

Andrew 1

The group playing Zendo ("the facial hair table", according my notes) finished with each of them winning a simple rules round and then Ben suggested attempting a medium rules round, prompting an anguished wail of tortured indecision from Gareth. Ben won the medium rules round and I think Gareth enjoyed it. "Our brains are fried," summarised Joe.

Ben 2

Joe 1

Gareth 1

And Shinkansen ended shortly afterwards.

Sam 82

Katy 76

Mel 51

Then Mel made Katy a cherry coke float which I thought was the most 1950s thing I'd seen in years. 

We rearranged ourselves into two new groups. Sam, Ian, Mel, Ben, Katy and Gareth played Texas Showdown while Joe, Martin and myself sat around the garden table and played The Crew Mission Deep Sea. We veered from hopeless incompetence to supreme capability, failing the first two attempts and then sailing past two rounds without even using the communication option. We ended on mission 21 which was a bit of an anti climax as we completed it in just three tricks.

Clearly impossible

I was too engrossed in our deep sea missions to follow much of Texas Showdown except for Katy musing "I'm sure I used to be good at this game."

Mel 3

Ben 6

Katy 9

Sam 10

Ian 10

Gareth 12

And with that, we were done. At least, most of us. Martin was keen for one more so perhaps him and the hosts continued into the wee small hours. Sorry that the blog is so self centred and that I arrived so late. I drove to Easton on total auto pilot and found myself on Stapleton Road thinking "oh shit".

Big thanks to Mel and Ben for hosting. Hope to see you all soon.

"Jedi" seems to be the hardest word

As England basked in a unusually warm winter, seven happy gamers congregated at Joe's house for the regular dose of cardboard-based entertainment. We were Joe, Andy, Adam, Sam, Martin, Ian and me.

We began as one big group with Just One, the word game where duplicate clues must be avoided. And we did pretty well at first in that regard, although some of our clues were a little obscure. Adam's clue for "Passion" was "Iniesta" while my clue for "Lamp" was "aldiss". With hindsight I suppose "tower" and "shipwreck" make a great definition for "lighthouse" but it took me a while. And it didn't even occur to me that Jedi would be a word at all, so I failed that particular word despite the obvious clues.

As the game went on, duplicates started appearing and well done to Andy for guessing "Mars" from the two remaining clues, "Attacks" and "Snickers".

We were "awesome" according to the scoring system.

Next we split into two and I faced the surprising situation that both games I suggested were chosen. Me, Adam and Andy went for Can't Stop, the dice game of pushing your luck (then again, aren't they all?) while the other four played Zendo, the game of questioning the Buddhist nature of things.

Zendo doesn't have a winner (expect maybe Martin this time, with Sam pretty sure he was last) and I know little about what happened but I think they had fun.

Can't Stop, meanwhile, was proving to be a very cagey game as they three of us proved time and time again that we could stop, actually. This cautious play lasted until the closing stages when Andy went on a rolling spree of mostly sevens and nines and then Adam, forced into relying on his unreliable luck with dice, had to really go for it to steal the eight column from Andy and take the win.

Adam 3
Andy 1
Andrew 1

During these two games we pretty much demolished three bags of crisps in about three minutes, including Martin's snack that looked like Wotsits but tasted different, causing a brief moment of confusion the first time you tried one.

We were pretty much completely out of sync so at some point we started playing Kingdomino and they played Byzanz. This was new to me and, if the brief snatches of conversation I heard are anything to go by, it revolves around trading in your merchants and "getting shit for one."

Ian 25 (plus 5)
Martin 25 (plus 3)
Joe 24
Sam 22

Kingdomino was fun, although I was often last to choose, meaning I didn't have to think too much. Just as well since my 7.5% cider had gone straight to my head.

Andy 37
Andrew 34
Adam 23

We then shot through a game of No Thanks, complete with the ubiquitous complaints about who shuffled these cards. It was yours truly and while I understand that the human mind is predisposed to find patterns that aren't there, I have to admit that there were more runs of numbers being revealed than was normal. I even shuffled the cards before putting them back so that the next game wouldn't have that problem.

Adam's single run of cards meant he strolled to a dominant win.

Adam 16
Andy 52
Andrew 90

The other half of the table played an Avenue-ish game called Railway Links. In this game dice are rolled and the players have to draw what they see on the dice.

Joe was quietly optimistic mid-game, based solely on the fact he wasn't cursing as much as the others were. Alas, the scores show his tranquillity did him no favours.

Sam 50
Martin 48
Ian 39
Joe 37

While this played out, we sped through a game of Qwixx which saw Adam's newfound love affair with dice continuing.

Adam 95
Andrew 60
Andy 44

And finally we were all together again. Ian took the opportunity to bow out and head home but the remainers had a rousing game of For Sale. I made no notes and, frankly, I remember little. I was drunk enough that, while I was writing down the scores, I asked what Ian got and had to be reminded that he'd already left. Cider followed by Soju. A potent combination.

Joe 53
Martin 47
Andy 46
Sam 40
Adam 40
Andrew 35

Thanks all. That's my last games night until late March as I'm off to Japan again. I'm genuinely sad to miss Katy's homecoming, but I'm sure I'll enjoy the blog posts.

Schön of the Dead (Man’s Chest)

Seven gamers made their usual Tuesday pilgrimage to someone's house to share in the joy of board gaming. This week's house belonged to Joe and joining him were Martin, Andy, Sam, Ian, Joe's friend Matt and me.

After a little discussion, we split into two groups. Martin, Sam and Joe played a new roll 'n' write game called Ganz Schön Clever. On the other half of the table we chose Flamme Rouge as our newbie friendly option. Although, to be clear, Matt wasn't a newbie at board games by any means but we've lost too many potential regulars after a game of Quantum to take any risks.

I didn't follow Ganz Schön Clever at all, I'm afraid so the meanings behind references to foxes or owls remain a mystery for now. Joe called it "more bingo than bingo." It must've been complicated since both Sam and Joe needed Martin to double check their scores. And what remarkable scores they were.

Sam 181
Martin 181
Joe 166

As for Flamme Rogue, we were playing with the track pieces that had cobble stones but without the pieces with watering stations. Matt got a rules explanation and seemed to be in good shape from the start. My rouler, on the other hand, became a figure of fun throughout the race.

Cut adrift early on, he couldn't catch up and picked up exhaustion cards almost every round. I started to suspect that he wasn't a professional cyclist at all, but a plucky amateur that had somehow landed a place in the team.

End of the game: my rouler's 

collection of exhaustion cards.

That was the back, though. At the front, it was more changeable. The strategy seemed simple. Get over the hills as efficiently as possible and then pedal like a madman in the final stage. Matt said that he'd used too many strong cards at the start and subsequently had a weak finish. Ian took the first place with his final 4 card being enough to beat my 3 and Andy's 4. I think we were all hoping for that large card we'd been saving to come out at the end (Andy even asked Martin to chose the last card he drew into his hand, perhaps not trusting his own luck) but we were all foiled. Ian was foiled less than the rest of us, though.

1. Ian
2. Andrew
3. Andy
4. Matt

After this we had ended more or less at the same time. We reshuffled and reformed into two new groups. Martin, Sam and Andy played another game of Ganz Schön Clever while Joe, Ian, Matt and I played Zendo, which Joe repeatedly assured us was the hit of the Festive season in the Joe household.

After a rules explanation and a first round with easy rules and Joe as moderator, Matt had the same issue with the game that I had on my first play: it's hard to know what criteria a rule could possibly be made from.

But we ploughed on and the game played out in a very equitable manner. I guessed Joe's rule, Matt guessed mine, Ian guessed Matt's and finally Joe guessed Ian's rule. We ended honours even after a lengthy and often silent game of deduction.

Ganz Schön Clever finished:

Martin 233
Sam 184
Andy 146

And, since we were still fretting over Zendo, they played another new game, Cuckoo. Apparently, it is a bit like Blackjack.

Andy 12 (wins on a tiebreaker)
Martin 12
Sam 5

And now, we were a sevensome once again. At this late hour, our tastes tend toward the lighter side, but which game? Fuji Flush? Dead Man's Chest?

In the end we went with The Mind, but not a big seven-hander, rather two groups of three and four since we had two copies. Both groups had a newcomer but, astonishingly, we did not have one rules explanation for both, we had two separate explanations at the same time: Joe taught Matt and Martin taught Andy. Such is his level of competitiveness, Martin actually looked a bit disappointed when Joe finished explaining the rules before he had.

We did, briefly, consider sitting around the table in such a way that the two groups alternated around the table, but that would've been too intense. Kind of interesting, though.

Instead, we remained separate, and kept an eye on the other group’s progress. We in the four-group were doing well, until a sudden collapse in form, largely blamed by others on my lack of initiative but I insist was due to the other players’ over-confidence.

Sam, Joe, Matt - level 8
Martin, Andy, Ian, Andrew - level 8

Finally, we chose Dead Man's Chest to end the game. Matt was familiar with Perudo/Liar Dice, so once the somewhat counter-intuitive rules were explained, we were off. DMC is not a favourite game of Andy's, by any measure, but he found a way to enjoy himself by playing in a random manner which would then annoyed his neighbour, Martin. The game played out with the usual audacious bluffing that you'd expect.

Results, in order of going out...

Sam, out when Andy called 6-6, Martin passed it on, saying Dead Man, and Sam challenged wrongly.
Matt out when Joe raised a 5-4 bid to 5-5 and Matt challenged
Andrew out when Ian challenged my 6-5 bid. It was 4-2.
Martin out when Joe challenged his bid of 6-1.
Andy out when he bid 1-1 blind and Joe challenged.
Joe out when Ian called 2-2. Joe rolled looked, rolled again and bid Dead Man blind. Ian challenged. It was 6-5.
Ian wins!

And so we were done. Thanks all. As ever, a pleasure.

Everyone checks their phones while Joe explains

DMC to Matt.

I'll Tichu a thing or two

Christmas at Joe's was actually Christmas at Joe's parents, who were away and allowing their offspring to party while the house was empty. By party, I obviously mean play games, which began with three of us - the host, Stanley and myself (Sam; Andrew will take over narrative duties when he arrives). And by empty, I mean there was some Michael Crawford style comedy of Joe being unable to let Stanley and I via the back door, so we passed games through a gap under the window before walking around the block to reach the front door.

Finally in, there was some further comedy - less Michael Crawford, more Friday Night Dinners - about getting the heating working, before we finally stood perusing our options. I was keen to play Rajas of the Ganges, Stan suggested Pulsar, but Joe proposed we begin with lighter fare in the form of Majesty: For the Realm.

Generation game

Each of us has a tableau of cards forming key buildings in a village (Inn, Barracks, etc) and on your turn, you simply add a card from the display beneath one of the buildings to gain points and sometimes some other benefit. But claiming the cards uses the same economy as Tribes or Firenze - the further up the display you go, the more expensive the card is.

Cards!

Joe focused on his castle and the chaining of this rewarding multiplier offset the attacks from Stanley (via Barracks) and my mish-mash of different cards. If Stan had managed to get himself a single castle card he might have claimed a debut win, but as it was the host's calculated castling got him the victory:

Joe 190
Stan 184
Sam 179

It was quite a sweet game, and I definitely prefer it to Splendor. And with the palette-cleanser out of the way, I suggested Rajas of the Ganges again, but no joy. Joe was keen to play The Quest for El Dorado though, and this was met with murmurs of approval from Stan and I.

forgot to take a photo

If only we'd known then how Joe was going to show us a clean pair of heels and sail off to the most convincing victory I've seen yet, with both Stan and I miles behind him. Stupid game!

Joe wins.
Sam probably second.
Stan most likely third.

With time on the afternoon session running out, the possibility of playing Rajas of the Ganges looked remote and so we had a few rounds of Zendo, doing the easy and figure-able-out rules.

plastic!

Katy arrived at the tail end of it when I was master, and guessed the rule before either Joe or Stan did. Then it was time to take Stanley home for tea, which I did, hoping that when I returned, perhaps we'd play Rajas of the Ganges!  We bumped into Andrew arriving as we left, and it is he who will now tell you the story of What Happened Next.

*

I arrived at around five o’clock, just in time to pass Stan and Sam leaving the house. Inside I found Joe and Katy about to embark upon the grand tour of Joe’s parents’ house. Soon after this, Adam arrived so Katy and I decided that now would be the best time to go and get chips. We set off, with promises to get Adam some chips too.

But the chip shop was shut so we went walking to find other food establishments. We looked in the local shop, but did not fancy limp sandwiches and crisps. Instead we found a “multi-cuisine” place that did wraps. And fries too, so we were sorted.

We returned and ate while we watched Adam and Joe play Azul.

Joe 60
Adam 54

“And that's the only time I will ever beat Adam at Azul.” said Joe, referring to the fact that it was Adam’s first game.

We were still waiting for Sam to return for the evening session, so we decided to start playing a game of Tichu. The last time I played it was a while ago, and I didn’t care for it (I don’t like old card games given a few new game-breaking cards and then sold as a brand new game) but I was happy to try again.

We split into teams according to how we were sat around the table, and began. There were a few occasions when I sighed at Tichu's fiddly rules, and Katy kept playing a card or set of cards by mistake and then putting them back into her hand meaning that we all knew what she had. It didn’t seem to help us, as Joe completed an early Grand Tichu and put them into an early lead.

Katy and Joe 295
Adam and Andrew 105

Then Sam returned and we finished off the hand we were playing while he satisfied his curiosity by investigating the cellar. Once we were all together we decided to play a five-player before the inevitable split into smaller components. Five players is a tricky number and, in this mostly gameless house, our options were more limited than usual. But Sam had brought The Godfather: A New Don so we set it up and he explained the rules for the newcomers.

It was fun, and there was a nice amount of muscling in on each others’ patches but there was confusion about when you can re-roll and, like the last time we played, the grimy pastel colour scheme lead to some confusion about where the boundaries were.

Adam won, despite having never been the Godfather while Joe came pretty close despite having only a handful of soldiers on the board. Perhaps there are hidden depths to this game under its murky surface.

Adam 15
Andrew 14
Sam 14
Joe 13
Katy 8

Nice, but a bit too long with five.

So now we split into two groups. Katy cradled Yokohama in her arms long enough to tempt Adam into a rematch. The board looks tiny when it’s set up for only two players.

Sam, Joe and I played Paperback since Joe couldn’t find his copy of Movable Type that he thought he’d brought with him. Paperback is a word building game.

I found it a bit dry. You make a word that gets you enough money to buy a new letter card which, if you use that in a word later on gives you even more money to buy cards. It was a “get stuff to get stuff” mechanic pasted onto a word-making game.

Sam 46
Joe 39
Andrew 29

Yokohama was still in full swing, so we played Azul. Such a nice game, with opportunities for evil. Sam told Joe to “stop looking at my board!” But I got two columns completed for a win.

Andrew 62
Joe 51
Sam 45

As for Yokohama, Adam didn’t score any points at all while Katy raced into a 44-0 lead. Adam said he was “trying something”.

Whatever it was, it almost worked. I remember him making a long and complicated mega-move near the game end and, during the final count up, it was quite close.

Katy 129
Adam 124

In the after game discussion, Adam worked out that he could’ve won if only he’d played his last turn differently.

Then Katy neatly put the game away. Into the box lid. She just closed it anyway, and flipped it over so it was the right way up again, to Joe's appalled wails of dismay.

Than Sam decided he would probably go back and, in indecent haste, Joe said “We can finish Tichu!” before he remembered to thank Sam for joining us.

Katy was not keen, preferring instead Divinare but Joe had already said he wasn’t in the mood for new any more rules. She was also unwilling to lose their 295-105 lead. "Come on, we'll take it home!" said Joe, encouragingly.

So we recommenced our game. It was an epic. Adam and I came out of the traps running, winning the first two hands in first and second for two 200-point bonuses. Then I got cocky and failed a Tichu, allowing J&K back into the game. Joe Grand Tichued again, under extraordinary circumstances. When he picked up the card given to him by Katy, he pointed out that if your partner declares a Grand Tichu it’s usually the done thing to give them your best card.

But despite Katy’s lack of help because she wanted to keep the two straights she had (we later found out she’d given him a five) and despite having no aces in his hand, Joe still managed to complete his Grand Tichu to edge them back into the lead.

Later Adam put down a 12-card run, which was nice.

Soon after that I noticed that midnight had passed and, since this was the closest to a New Year’s Party that I was going to this year, I wished everyone a happy new year!!

Katy was keen for the game to end, and seemed disappointed that Adam and I, regaining the lead, ended a round a mere ten points off the game-ending 1,000 point mark.

Surely it would end in the next round. And it did, but only just, as a lone king in our stack of tricks gave us the ten points we needed to close the game as winners.

Adam and Andrew 1,000
Katy and Joe 800

And so we were done. Phew, what an evening. What a year! Well done everyone for getting to the end. Let’s do it all again next year.

Happy New Year!

The Lord of Mis-roll

I left my flat this Tuesday evening to the warm tones of Silent Night coming from a nearby group of carol singers. Nice of them to come out on the night of the GNN Christmas special.

I went to Joe's for a lift, and then we sat in traffic on our way to pick up Sam. As such, the three of us were the last to arrive at Adam and Hannah's, joining Katy, Matt, Martin and Ian.

First there was the little matter of the Secret Santa to settle. Everyone had bought a game related gift for everyone else, and we opened them in order of age, youngest first. We were all very happy with our gifts since they all seemed perfectly chosen for us. Even for the last minute entry, Matt, which required a slight change in the pattern of gift giving.

Ian's festive jumper won many admirers

After all that generosity, we all played a game together: Avenue. In this game, each player has a map (all identical) of grapes, castles and farms. As the oldest player reveals a card showing a road (straight horizontal, straight vertical and four ninety degree turns) which we all have to draw on our maps. The idea is to link the grapes to the farms and, eventually, to the castles too. But be careful! One farm won't score at all, so take care not to waste useful roads on that one.

It's like a simple Karuba but despite the simplicity, it caused anguish around the table. Katy was appalled to see that the last farm to score was the one she couldn't reach any more. Joe, in contrast, was only one tile away from connecting all of his roads into one long super highway (for grapes).

Joe 78
Andrew 66
Martin 63
Sam 61
Hannah 58
Ian 58
Katy 55
Matt 42
Adam 41

After this was a break from gaming for mince pies and the Quiz of the Year. Sam was quiz creator and question master and the teams were Joe, Martin, Katy and Ian against Hannah, Adam, Matt and me. Since I had written most of the blog this year, it was considered only fair that I should be partnered with those who hadn't been able to attend.

Katy didn't realise mince pies had been served

until there was only one left.

However, my spotty memory was no match for the other team who had, after all, actually been there.

Katy, Joe, Martin, Ian 22
Adam, Hannah, Matt, Andrew 17

Next, we split into two groups. Katy, Ian, Martin and Sam chose The Quest For Eldorado while the rest of us played Zendo.

It was the first go on Zendo for everyone except Joe who talked us through the rules. It's basically a game of Spot The Rule, communicated through the medium of coloured plastic shapes. We played for three rounds. Adam won the first round, with Matt guessing right in the second.

Then disaster struck! As a bag of salty nibbles was passed across to Matt, his bottle of beer was knocked over. Quickly, we leapt into action, saving the rule book. Then we realised that, since all the pieces were plastic, the game itself was waterproof.

All we had to do was dry it, so Hannah got out the salad spinner and we put all the pieces in there. Despite several brisk spins, each piece still needed some personal attention so we spent a little time drying them off one by one.

And after all that, Hannah correctly guessed the rule!

The people on the big table were still playing Quest For Eldorado so we tried Joe's secret santa gift of Qwinto. This is a roll and write game whereby you have to right the results of some rolled dice along one of three rows. Each row has to contain values that increase from left to right. Complete a row and you get a number of points equal to the largest number in that row. There are also a few columns to complete, too. You must write a number on your turn, but can choose to pass on other players rolls. If a player completes two rows or goes bust four times, the game ends.

Since each roll can be used, there’s always something you need to be aware of. As such, I preferred it to other roll and write games. But my warm feelings for the game were nor reciprocated, as I ended the game with four mis-rolls giving me –20 points in the final reckoning. It would’ve been a whitewash if I hadn’t kept rolling eights.

Andrew 63
Matt 63
Hannah 40
Joe 39

Eldorado had, by now, had the shit quested out of it, with Martin getting there first, fighting off a late burst of activity from Ian and a machete-weilding Katy. Sam was only a couple of hexes further back, too.

1 Martin
2. Ian and Katy
3. Sam

So we were all together and a final game of 6nimmt was enough to persuade Hannah to postpone her bed-time. In a display of festive cheer, we also invited Dirk to join us. This loose cannon is always good for a chuckle or two as he either falls on his sword or pushes someone else into danger.

In the first round, Dirk ended with 39. Martin had 22 and I felt obliged to point out that he was the worst sentient being in the room. Ian scored only two in round one and then finished round two clear of any points at all! Adam and Sam were struggling and Sam reminisced about when it was usually him or Adam who won. Sam managed to get through round three with only a single point. Adam did not fare so well. He scored over twenty in each of the three rounds, leading me to dub him “The Human Dirk.” My, I was in a feisty mood this evening!

Ian 24
Andrew 30
Sam 37
Matt 38
Hannah 39
Martin 45
Joe 46
Katy 48
Adam 65
Dirk 80

And so we were off. Full of the joys of the season, with happy memories of mince pies, festive jumpers, wet plastic and mystery presents. Big thanks to Adam and Hannah for hosting and see everyone soon!

Wailways

This week Adam and Hannah offered to host games night. And then they forgot what day it was until Martin knocked on the door, eager for games.

This week, as is usual in the time of summer holidays, attendance was sparce, with just six of us. The two hosts, Martin, Ian, Katy and myself. We began with a rousing game of Fauna, with Katy happily reminding everyone that she recently came second in Fauna to someone from the BBC Nature Unit.

We began and I was a little shocked to see that such a fun, family game should have tactics, with the more experienced players guessing areas or dimensions according to whichever scored the most. What’s wrong with just guessing like a blind fool?

Anyway, we got a bit lucky with the animal names, with the American Black Bear and the New Zealand Sea Lion appearing, as well as references to cotton and Java in other names. Adam had a poor game until the final round when he scored more points than he had in all the previous rounds put together. Katy repeated her previous form by coming second again. This time to Martin. Somehow, she didn’t seem as pleased.

If it has 'Cotton' in its name, it must be around here somewhere.

Martin 91
Katy 83
Hannah 67
Ian 56
Andrew 50
Adam 40

Then we split into two. Railways of the World was a strong favourite but a six-player game would have been far too long, so a suitable alternative was debated. In the end, Ra was chosen and Ian, Katy and Martin decamped into the front room to play. Meanwhile, Hannah, Adam and I set up Railways of the World while little baby Arthur decided that only losers snooze, and kept waking up and needing attention.

Eventually, he got off to sleep and we began while Ra was midway through its second epoch. I was lucky. While Adam and Hannah were distracted by their charming baby boy, I got a long look at the board set-up. During most of the game, I monopolised the North-East of the board and my San Antonio Hotel card got me a whole bunch of points throughout the game. Adam started in Mexico City, with its glut of red cubes and Hannah went for Guadalajara.

In the other room, Ra came to an end, and what a close game it was:

Martin 59
Ian 57
Katy 43

However, they weren’t finished with pyramids. Oh, no. They began a game of Zendo, the game of doing Zen, I suppose. They spread out the multicoloured pyramids on the multicoloured tablecloth, which probably made the game a little bit harder.

Back in the good old US, Adam had the speed bonus and the four-colour bonus, but Hannah and I were both lucky enough to have a delivery bounty in our neighbourhood. At one point Adam linked his network to Hannah’s. When she then didn’t move a particular cube at risk, he suggested she might want to rethink her move. She did and shipped the cube for points, wondering out loud why Adam built the track and then didn’t take advantage of it. I suggested it might be love.

Adam’s good deed went unrewarded, however. Late in the game, Hannah decided to urbanise a grey city, and put down a black city right in the path that Adam wanted to use to ship a black cube. Adam’s first game on his own set of RotW was not going well. We ended at 10.40.

My match-winning move

Andrew 71
Hannah 49
Adam 45

Don’t know what happened with Zendo, since it was non-leaderboard. I think Martin won. At least, he said no one guessed his rule.

And with that, we were off. Another evening of high tension and crumbly shortcake biscuits.

Meanwhile, Katy complained that the division was making her too competitive and she was obsessing over it, so maybe it could go back to a monthly thing. But Katy can rest assured she is no longer bottom of the table.

To be the Master, you Must Earn It

Thursday rolled around, and Martin and Ian made their way from Easton, having generously agreed to relocate from Martin's house to incorporate myself (Sam) and Hollie.

We started at 7.30 and Little Joe (watching) and Stanley (participating) joined us for a couple of rounds of In A Bind, the game of contortionism, never more starkly contrasted with reality than when my wife turns up with a camping proposition midway through and everyone - holding their anatomies in a smorgasbord of unnatural poses - pauses to listen to our summer vacation plans.

I was out first both times - first off I charitably reached over to assist Stan, and a card fell off my shoulder. Second time I can't even recall distinctly, just a general falling away of any sense of control. Despite having to hold a card in a sweaty armpit, Ian held on for the win in the first game:

1. Ian
2. Stanley
3. Martin
4. Sam

elbow up, finger down, card on neck, card under chin

Whilst in the second game Martin was so in control he even kept turning cards after everyone else was knocked out:

1. Martin
2. Stanley
3. Ian
4. Sam

Teeth!

We'd hit 8 o'clock at this point so I took the kids upstairs to bed; reading half a chapter of Moominvalley in Midwinter to the boys. I have no idea what happened downstairs - when I returned there was no game set up so I can only assume conversation had taken place. We put a stop to that with a quick game of Ra whilst the returning Hollie freshened up, prepping for her second games night in her debut week.

In the first round there wasn't a whole lot of Ra - I pictured him/her/it in a recliner watching daytime soaps whilst we made merry on the Nile. I was sure everything would change soon and followed my previous tactics of grabbing the basics - civs, pharaohs - and getting out. But Ra was still at home, now watching repeats of Heartbeat on BBC4, and Martin made hay while the sun shone, as it tends to do in Egypt. Ian seemed to stagnate, suffering with the arid air.

I'd picked up the highest bidding tile and was so determined not to suffer the highest-tile-curse (that of being unable to bring oneself to bid) that I picked up a few tiles rather expensively, when - as Martin pointed out - I could have added a tile to them. As round 2 closed out I was concerned about my lack of monuments, whereas the others - Martin in particular - seemed to have a healthy crop.

A decent third round wasn't enough  for me, as Martin consolidated his strong position with a heap of lovely monument tiles that scored him a whopping bonus at the end. Meanwhile Ian's monuments saved him from the ignominy of finishing with less points than he started with:

Martin 59
Sam 48
Ian 19

Hollie had watched the last round of the game did not seem deterred, so Martin broke out Zendo, the game of guessing the rules. Multiple pyramids of three sizes (and three point values) and five colours sit in the centre of the table. One player is "Master" and secretly chooses a rule from a deck of cards to implement: using the pyramids, they show one layout (or koan) that matches the rule (it has the Buddha nature) and one that doesn't. Rules might be a simple as Koans always include one green pyramid or as crazy as Koans must have a small black pyramid on its side, or  all pyramids in the koan must have a collective point value of seven.

Play moves clockwise, and on your turn you propose a new koan then either ask "Master?" and the current master will tell you whether your koan has the Buddha nature or not - or you say "Mondo" and Brian Wilson sashays into the room.

I am the Master now

OK that doesn't happen. If you say Mondo all the non-master players guess as to whether the just-built koan is 'of the Buddha nature' or not - if they guess right, they get a guessing stone and on their turn, they can guess the rule. We - with some difficulty - figured out the rule each time, but we were playing the easy and medium rules. Some of the expert rules were pretty insane... prime numbers... points divisible by three... we stayed on the path.

Red cube shame: Not of the Buddha nature

And being the master was tricky, because disproving a guess involves making a new koan - either one that matches the guess but not the rule, or the other way around. Hollie found being the Master so tiring she actually went to bed - all our good work with Lords of Waterdeep, undone by one fell Buddhist abstract puzzle!

I was quite pleased I guessed Ian's rule - it took a few stabs but I realised we were focussing on what was present in the approved koans rather than what was absent. I managed to identify that the blue pyramids were in all the non-Buddhist koans and the rest, as they say, is history. (No blue pyramids, at least one green pyramid)

With Hollie beaten by the challenge of being Master, we packed Zendo away and finished off with Love Letter. And something of an epic Love Letter too - you may not be surprised to hear that Ian won, but it wasn't straightforward. He picked up two easy rounds and then I won one. Then I won another. Then Martin said he would win three in a row, and he won two. Then Ian won again!

Ian - 3 cubes
Martin - 2 cubes
Sam - 2 cubes

Classic Love Letter. If only it had been around when they were making It's a Knockout. I bet Kevin Keegan would have been awesome.