November 18, 2006

Sorry for the delay in reporting. It’s been a busy couple of weeks.

On Saturday, Nov. 18, we had a good group over for gaming. Attending were Bob, Carol and Rachel Jones, Dave, Noreen and Andrew Fair, Eric Haas, Erik Light in his first appearance with the local group, Scott Percival, and Stephanie, Rebecca and Bill Ruvinsky. As usual, it was a lot of fun.

Tote below (winner listed first).

• Verflixxt - Carol, Bob, Dave, Erik, Noreen
• Streetcar - Eric, Erik, Noreen, Carol
• Blue Moon City - Dave 4, Rachel 3, Bob 3, Andrew 2
  • Bob: BMC is unquestionably my favorite of the newer games. The mechanics are a lot of fun with loads of tactical play and some strategic decisions as well.
• Silk Road - Noreen 34, Dave 30, Carol 29, Erik, 28, Eric 25, Bob 21
• Three Dragon Ante - Erik 111, Eric 95, Carol 91, Rachel 4, Dave -3, Bob -5
• Das Störrische Muli - Erik, Bob, Dave, Eric
• Leonardo da Vinci - Scott 67, Dave 50, Carol 36, Eric 25
• Thurn & Taxis - Bob 23, Erik 19, Rachel 14, Noreen 11
• Cash N Guns - Rebecca $105,000, Bill $100,000, Rachel $85,000, Stephanie $70,000, Bob DOA
• Ticket to Ride 1910 - Stephanie 122, Carol 118, Noreen 107, Bill 104, Dave 91
• Rheinländer - Rachel 31, Eric 29, Erik 29, Scott 22, Bob 16
  • Bob: Holy cow, was I piled on. Everyone hammered me in this game.
• Tichu - Carol/Rachel 1050, Scott/Noreen 800
• Kanaloa - Eric 14, Dave 11, Erik 9, Bob 7
• Great Wall of China - Dave 40, Erik 38, Bob 33, Eric 30
• Metromania - Bob 26, Eric 16, Noreen 11, Dave 2
  • Bob: The first game I’ve won while being about 70% asleep. Really, I was swaying in my chair.

Eric’s pictures taken that day are here.

Hope to see everyone again soon.

September 6, 2006

Attending were Bob and Carol Jones, Paul Czarnota, Dave and Noreen Fair, Scott Percival and Eric Haas. Carol made some excellent beef barbecue for dinner.


Tote Board (winner listed first):

• Coyote - Dave, Scott, Noreen, Bob, Eric, Paul, Carol
  • Fun game of putting cards on your forehead and guessing the total. Plays like a combination of Liar’s Dice and Indian Poker.
• Bolide - Scott, Noreen, Paul, Eric, Bob, Dave, Carol
  • Bob: A mathematical car racing game with little luck. Clever maneuvering system marred by difficulty of actually figuring it out. Some of the group really liked it, others not so much.
• Crokinole - Bob, Paul
• Crokinole - Paul, Bob
• Railroad Tycoon - Scott 65, Bob 56, Paul 56, Carol 55, Dave 50, Eric 35
  • Bob: Excellent game of RRT. Very close and hard fought. Paul did an excellent job in his first playing of this great game.
• Crokinole - Paul, Eric
• Rum & Pirates - Paul 76, Eric 71, Bob 66, Dave 64, Carol 51
• Thurn & Taxis - Bob 46, Paul 40, Dave 37, Eric 35
  • Bob: SDJ winner of 2006. Good, middle-weight game similar in feel to Web of Power and Ticket to Ride.

Thanks to everyone for coming!

Bob

July 22, 2006

Hey everyone! Just before we started gaming on Saturday we received a couple of e-mails from some of the folk who’ve been gaming with us at Borders on Monday nights. Since we were low on attendance from the regulars, we decided to invite them to join us. Attending were Bob and Carol Jones, Dave and Noreen Fair, Eric Haas, Bill and Jason Ruvinsky, and newcomers Lance Slifka and Melinda and Ruben Carbonell. We played a ton of games, ate some fantastic pies made by Melinda (who is a student pastry chef) and had a great time.

Check out Eric’s pictures.


The tote is below, winner listed first.

Tote Board

• Crokinole - Bob, Lance
• Crokinole - Dave/Eric, Bob/Lance
• Show Manager - Bob 49, Lance 42, Carol 35, Eric 35, Noreen 32, Dave 28
• 6 Nimmt - Lance 28, Noreen 39, Melinda 46, Carol 53, Ruben 53, Dave 58, Bob 67, Eric 76
• Thurn & Taxis - Ruben 26, Dave 21, Bob 20, Lance 16
  • Bob: This year’s winner of the German Game of the Year. Fun, middle weight game with beautiful components. Similar in feel to Web of Power. Looking forward to playing this one again.
• Ticket to Ride: Märklin - Melinda 151, Noreen 132, Eric 125, Carol 112
• Blokus Trigon - Ruben 0, Noreen 11, Eric 15, Carol 17
• Cronberg - Melinda 28, Lance 28, Dave 24, Bob 22
  • Bob: First time playing this quick little tile laying game. Lots of opportunities for tactical play.
• Wits & Wagers - Bob/Ruben 165, Dave/Noreen 150, Eric/Carol 130, Melinda/Lance 95
• Formula Dé - Melinda, Lance, Ruben, Noreen, Cary, Eric, Dave
  • Bob: Dave had a huge lead for most of this two lap race. Unfortunately, his widow spent the night scraping his remains off the wall of one of the turns.
• Marco Polo - Bill 16, Carol 15, Jason 10, Bob 8
• Streetcar - Bob, Jason, Carol, Bill
  • Bob: Nastiest game of Streetcar ever. No one had a clean route, mainly because we put rude turns on other player’s tracks. Bill left the depot first and was the last to arrive due to a disastrous reading of the board.
• Tichu - Bob/Noreen 1020, Dave/Jason 880
  • Bob: An awesome comeback by Dave and Jason wasn’t enough to secure the victory.

We hope to see you at our next session in late August or early September!

Bob

P.S. - I forgot to mention Cary Abend who gamed with us again for the first time in a long while. And he brought Nathan. My apologies to Cary.

June 24, 2006

Sorry for the delay in the report. Busy last week.

On Saturday, June 24, a mere six of us gathered to play games. Attending were Bob, Carol and Rachel Jones, Dave and Noreen Fair, and Scott Percival. The tote is below (winner listed first).

Tote Board

• Crokinole - Bob and Scott, Dave and Carol. (This was the inaugural game on our brand new Crokinole board! Bob and Scott teamed up against Dave and Carol. Fun game.)
• Dance of the Eggs - Scott 3, Bob 3, Carol 2, Rachel 2, Noreen 0, Dave dropped. (Wacky game with rubber eggs. You roll a die and then have to perform an action such as bouncing an egg to see who catches it, holding an egg under your chin, snatching the die, etc. When someone drops an egg, the game is over. Whoever has the most eggs wins.)
• Gemblo - Dave 0, Scott 10, Noreen 11, Rachel 13, Bob 13, Carol 16. (Blokus with hexagonal pieces suitable for up to six players. A beautiful game and fun to play.)
• Cleopatra and the Society of Architects - Carol 53, Scott 45, Dave 44, Noreen 43, Bob 60 but disqualified from winning. (Lavish, overproduced game with amazing Egyptian bits. Players collect cards to build monuments in Egypt. Mixture of familiar mechanics works well. Looking forward to trying this again.)
• Crokinole - Bob and Scott, Dave and Rachel
• Crokinole - Dave and Rachel, Bob and Scott
• Crokinole - Bob and Scott, Dave and Rachel
• Lord of the Rings - Sauron, Dave, Noreen, Scott, Carol, Bob (In a very close game, Sauron corrupted the ringbearer (and pretty much everyone else) and won against the free peoples of Middle Earth.)
• Wiz War - Bob, Scott, Noreen, Carol, Dave
• Fossil - Carol 123, Bob 85, Dave 73, Noreen 52, Scott 47 (Carol destroyed us. Enough said.)
• Die Sieben Siegel - Scott 10, Bob 15, Dave 17, Noreen 22, Carol 31

All in all, a fun day of gaming.

Hope to see you soon!

Bob

Babycon XIII

Photos from Babycon XIII.

April 29, 2006

We had the smallest group in quite some time for gaming on Saturday. Scott Percival couldn’t make it so it was Bob and Carol and Dave and Noreen for most of the day. Jason and Alex Ruvinsky joined us for one late night game of Elfenland. It was still a very fun time. The Tote Board is below (winner first).

• Can’t Stop - Noreen, Dave, Bob, Carol. (Noreen showed us how she won the Can’t Stop tournament at the Gathering of Friends. Good, quick filler, dice game with some tough decisionmaking.)
• Ticket to Ride: Marklin - Noreen 174, Dave 160, Carol 156, Bob 141 (The newest Ticket to Ride game did not disappoint. Passengers who travel from city to city collecting victory points add quite a bit of tension to a normally laid-back game.)
• Silberzwerg - Dave 509, Noreen 485, Bob 441, Carol 389 (One of my recent acquisitions, this is a good set collection game of dwarves digging for gems to fulfill contracts. Lots of backstabby goodness! Everyone enjoyed it.)
• Tichu - Dave and Carol 945, Bob and Noreen 55 (Tichu is an ancient, highly popular card game with lots of strategy. This was an absolute disaster of a game. Dave got good hand after good hand. A complete slaughter.)
• Elfenland - Bob 18 (5 cards), Carol 18 (3 cards), Alex 18 (a card), Dave 17, Noreen 16, Jason 16 (Great game. We played with the “home village” variant which added another level of strategy. I won on the tie-breaker.)

Not a lot of games played but three of the five were new to me and four out of five were new to Carol. Looking forward to playing some of these again at Babycon.

Bob

March 25, 2006

Last Saturday night, ten stoic, steely-eyed, poker-faced players gathered around a table for a No Limit Texas Hold Em tournament. At the same time, ten amateurs convened at our house in Germantown for the same thing! The buy-in was $10 and the top three spots paid off $10, $30 and $60, respectively. We raised the blinds every 20 minutes.

Playing were Bob and Carol Jones, Glenn and Beth Bramer, Dave and Noreen Fair, Dan Korn, Kevin Bealer, Bill Ruvinsky, and last minute addition, Jason Ruvinsky.

Thanks to Dave for providing the chips and cards, setting up and running the game. Per Dave’s idea we doubled everyone’s initial amount of chips while keeping the blinds low in order to give everyone more playing time. It seemed to work quite well as the first player out got to play for nearly two hours before busting. The game ran about four hours before a winner emerged.

There were a few highlights that bear mentioning. Glenn was the initial chip leader having taken most of Bob’s stack after Bob drew a straight on the Flop only to lose to the flush Glenn made on the River. Bob recovered when he managed to deal a similarly devastating blow to Glenn. Carol took over and was chip leader for most of the evening. Carol was a veritable killing machine knocking out four of the first six players - Bill, Jason, Beth and Glenn. By the end of the night, Dave had knocked out four himself - Noreen, Dan, Bob and Kevin. The only other person to knock someone out was Kevin who took out Carol.

The tally is as follows.

• 10 - Bill
• 09 - Noreen
• 08 - Jason
• 07 - Beth
• 06 - Dan
• 05 - Glenn
• 04 - Bob
• 03 - Carol $10
• 02 - Kevin $30
• 01 - Dave $60

Dave was the big winner and played a good game throughout. A couple of times he was down to a handful of chips but he stuck around and at the end held all the chips. He did get a couple of very lucky breaks that were really the highlight of the evening. The first was taking out Dan.

Dan versus Dave:

Dan had Q-4 offsuit
Dave had Q-8 offsuit
Pre-flop Dave was 68% to win heads up against Dan.

The Flop was Q-7-4 giving Dan two pair, Dave one pair with no possibility of a flush.
Post-flop, Dave was a 26% underdog.

Carol bet, Dan raised all in and Dave called, leaving himself with three low denomination chips if he lost. Carol folded.

The Turn was no help. After the turn, Dave was a 17% underdog.

The River was an 8, giving Dave a higher two pair and knocking Dan out of the game.


The second highlight was the last hand of the night when Dave went head to head against Kevin.

Dave versus Kevin:

Dave had about 65% of the chips in play. Kevin had about 35%.

Kevin had K-3 offsuit
Dave had 7-7

Kevin moved all-in pre-flop. Dave called.
Dave was a 71% favorite pre-flop.

The Flop was A-10-10
Dave is still a 69% favorite.

The turn was another A, putting two pair on the board, and counterfeiting Dave’s sevens. Now both players had two pair (Aces and Tens) while Kevin had a King kicker! Kevin is now the favorite. Dave is a 91% underdog. Only a seven can save him.

The River was a 7. Dave won with a full house.

Thanks to everyone who came out. It was a great time. I hope to do it again soon.

Bob

March 18, 2006

We had a full house on Saturday and played a lot of good games, including some classics. Attending were Bob and Carol Jones, Scott Percival, Dave and Noreen Fair, Eric Haas, Dan Korn, Bill, Stephanie and Jason Ruvinsky and assorted kids. Dave and Stephanie did particularly well. Thanks to everyone who attended.

Eric has posted his pictures here.

The tote board is below (winner listed first).

• Survive - Scott 19, Dave 16, Carol 11, Bob 6 (A great Parker Brothers game from 1981. I just got my copy and am very happy to have it. This is a much nastier game than the British version, Escape from Atlantis.)
• Vegas Showdown - Dave 58, Bob 50, Scott 50, Dan 49, Eric 47 (This new Avalon Hill game is a LOT of fun. Accurately described as “Princes of Florence lite”, players build their casinos and hotels after a series of auctions. Very good, even though we played incorrectly.)
• Lost Cities - Stephanie, Jason
• Die Sieben Siegel - Stephanie 6, Jason 20, Carol 28 (Everyone who’s played it has enjoyed this quick trick-taking game.)
• El Grande - Eric 96, Bob 86, Bill 77, Jason 65, Dave 59 (A very hard fought game that was much closer than the scores indicate. Well-played by Eric for the win.)
• Medici - Noreen 108, Dan 91, Stephanie 87, Carol 74, Scott 73
• Poison - Stephanie -13, Dan -19, Noreen -31, Scott -31
• King of the Beasts - Dave 6, Carol 2, Scott 2, Bob 2 (Yet another fun, quick little Reiner Knizia design with great artwork.)
• Santiago - Bill 107, Carol 78, Eric 77, Jason 67, Scott 64
• Tikal - Stephanie 131, Dave 103, Bob 85, Noreen 82 (Another hard-fought game won handily by Stephanie.)
• Railroad Tycoon - Jason 64, Noreen 63, Bob 57, Dave 53, Carol 51, Eric 45 (The closest game we’ve ever had. In the end, Jason didn’t have others screwing with him and so was able to mount a major comeback for the win.)
• Through the Desert - Dave 64, Eric 60, Bob 5, Jason 54

February 11, 2006

Last Saturday, fifteen brave souls ventured out into the impending threat of the snowstorm to join us at our house for some gaming. In addition to the Jones family, no less brave for not having to venture into the storm, were Dan Korn and Rachel Silber, Dave and Noreen Fair, Bill, Stephanie, Jason and Alex Ruvinsky, and Scott Percival. The remainder (children) of the Korn, Fair and Ruvinsky families also attended, mostly occupying themselves by playing X-Box and running about with lightsabers.

We started a bit after 1PM and ended around 5AM. Carol made excellent tacos for dinner and won three games out of the seven she played, including both games of Railroad Tycoon! The Fairs managed to escape at 5:30AM even though nearly 10 inches of snow had fallen while Alex and Jason couldn't get their car out of the parking spot and so had to crash on our couches until later on Sunday.

The tote board is below (winner listed first):

• The Bottle Imp - Bob, Carol, Dave
  • Bob: Played only one round out of three before others arrived. Great trick-taking game with a lot of strategy. Especially good for three.
• Poison - Rachel S, Noreen, Dan, Carol, Bob, Dave
• Railroad Tycoon - Carol 52, Bob 50, Dave 42, Noreen 37, Dan 33, Rachel S 32
• Acquire - Carol $33600, Bob $30200, Dan $22900, Noreen $22300, Dave $17500, Rachel S$14100
  • Bob: We haven’t played Acquire in a long time. Very few mergers meant that most players were cash poor for most of the game.
• Die Sieben Siegel - Alex (tied), Jason (tied), Scott
• 6 Nimmt - Alex 17, Bill 31, Scott 37, Stephanie&nsp;39, Dave 58, Noreen 67
• San Juan - Bob 28, Dave 24, Alex 22
  • Bob: The card game of Puerto Rico features a lot of choices and plays very quickly. One of my favorite card games. Alex put more cards in the Chapel than I’ve ever seen in one game.
• Through the Desert - Dave 79, Scott 77, Alex 75, Noreen 48
• Attila - Dan 97, Carol 95, Jason 91, Bob 86
• Streetcar - Jason, Bill, Stephanie, Carol, Noreen
  • Bob: Clearly a game in which you must pay attention to detail. A couple of sloppy mistakes (by her and others) caused some difficulties for Carol.
• The Bottle Imp - Alex 148, Dave 90, Bob 63
• Railroad Tycoon - Carol 64, Jason 51, Dave 47, Alex 45, Bob 44, Noreen 43

Thanks to everyone for coming. It was a good time.

Bob

January 7, 2006

Hey folks! Below is the gaming report from last Saturday. We had a huge group as almost all the big families made it. Attending were Bob, Carol and Rachel Jones, Dan Korn and Rachel Silber, Dave, Noreen and Andrew Fair, Stephanie, Jason and Alex Ruvinsky, Paul Bartholomew, Scott Percival and Eric Haas. Plus, we had the usual assortment of rugrats and pre-teens.

Pictures are here.

I hope to have another session in early February. Will send an e-mail around soon. See you!


The tally is below. Winner listed first.

• Blokus (travel) Bob, Dave
• Poison Dave 9, Eric 24, Carol 28, Bob 34 (This has become our filler of choice. It's quick, fun and has a decent amount of strategy)
• Verflixxt (That’s Life) Bob 16, Eric 15, Noreen 11, Dave -4, Carol -6
• Wits and Wagers Dan 240, Bob 200, Scott 140, Carol 80, Dave 0, Noreen 0, Eric 0 (A pretty good trivia party game. I find it somewhat annoying that I got right 5 out of 7 questions and still didn’t win because of the final bet.)
• 6 Nimmt! Carol 40, Bob 42, Scott 43, Dave 45, Dan 54, Noreen 74, Eric 89.
• Diamant! Dave 34, Scott 19, Eric 13, Carol 11, Andrew 11, Bob 7, Rachel J 0 (We played with the Forbidden Idol variant. Sadly, Dave took it every time.)
• Antike Scott 9, Dave 6, Jason 6, Paul 4 (An excellent “Civilization Lite” game. Nice bits, some clever mechanics and a reasonable playing time.)
• Die Sieben Siegel Paul 9, Scott 9 (tie), Dave, Jason
• Rheinlander Andrew 39, Rachel J 36, Bob 35, Eric 26, Carol 23 (Rheinlander has quickly become one of my favorite games.)
• Buy Low, Sell High No winner. Eric, Bob, Carol (Aaargh! I want to play this correctly some day. We had to abandon the game two-thirds of the way through because we screwed up the rules again. My bad.)
• Top Secret Spies Rachel J, Carol, Bob, Dan, Noreen, Eric (I mistook my red guy for orange and so helped Rachel to an easy victory. After screwing up the rules to BLSH and then this, I was starting to think I should retire.)
• Cartagena Stephanie, Scott, Alex
• Railroad Tycoon Dave 69, Bob 63, Alex 62, Carol 61, Scott 55, Paul 53 (What a fantastic game! Great theme, quick yet deep gameplay, and amazing, sumptuous bits. One of my favorites after only two plays.)
• Around the World in 80 Days Stephanie 72 days. Dan 81, Eric 81, Noreen 84, Jason did not finish
• Poison Eric -11, Jason -15, Dan -22
• Titan: The Arena Eric 12, Jason 10, Dan 2