Gaming Results

I had hoped to host tonight, but Karla was feeling pretty awful, so Rakesh and Amanda were kind enough to host it. Only Lee, Dan, and myself joined them, so it was more sparsely attended than usual. I had meant to bring Formula Dé, but all I brought was one of the set of four American maps. Oops.

Near the end of the night, Lee mentioned that we hadn't seen Karla in a long time, and that we might as well have Game Night at Rakesh's every week, to which Amanda said, "That'd be awesome!"

Rette Sich Wer Kann

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Dan	23	1
Mike	19	2
Amanda	17	3	*
Rakesh	15	4	*
Lee	14	5

Notes: Tonight was the first time we played this game with all the rules correct. I had a bunk translation that didn't explain that when the swimming phase occurs, only one piece can come out of each boat. Thus, you can force folks to take pieces out of the better boats.

Anyway, Rakesh and I teamed up to get the orange boat ashore pretty quickly, Lee managed to get the purple boat ashore by using up all his captain's hats, then watched in an increasingly grumpy fashion as all his other pieces were killed.

Amanda kept asking, "Is it time to move the boats?," and I quietly manipulated Dan and Rakesh into killing each other rather than me, and it almost worked, but I was caught in a late boat-swapping frenzy that forced me to abandon a boat before I had wanted to, and also gave Dan an extra piece on Ganja boat, which was about to reach shore.

I managed to stave off defeat for a couple rounds, announcing that we needed to kill at least one of Dan's pieces in order to have a chance of winning, and we managed to get honeymoon boat moved up parallel to ganja boat. Still, in the 2nd to last turn, everyone voted to spring a leak in honeymoon boat, which saved Dan from losing a guy. After that, it became a bit of a kingmaker position.

In the final turn, another leak sprung in honeymoon boat, sinking it, (I had given up by this point), and Dan managed to get the victory by keeping his two guys in the boat over the last 3 or 4 turns.

Dan's timing was perfect - probably a bit lucky - because he was never in a position of being forced out of a good boat, and at least twice he managed to move a piece up into a better boat during the swim phase.

In the end, Dan and I shared a laugh because this was the sort of game that Annie would have made sure Dan didn't win. Lee said, "Yeah, when's Annie coming back?"

By Hook or Crook

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Mike	Head of table	1
Amanda	6 spaces back	2	*
Lee	12 spaces back	3	*
Rakesh	15 spaces back	4 (Tie)	*
Dan	15 spaces back	4 (Tie)

Notes: Next we went for By Hook or Crook, as Amanda was copping an attitude towards Santiago.

I explained the rules quickly and Rakesh said, "Dang, I wanted to play an easy game." Dan rallied to my defense and asserted that it really was once it got started. The options are pretty simple: (1) auctionhouse or (2) castle? Then, at (1), do you want to (a) play a check or (b) steal a check? Then, at (2), do you want to (a) display an exhibit, (b) steal from an exhibit, or (c) catch the thieves?

That's it.

Amanda had a decent exhibit from the get-go, and managed to move up pretty quickly. In fact, she was in the lead pretty much all game. Rakesh and I were the slowest goers, as I was trying to bulk up my hand of cards. I could have made an exhibit or two early on, but I didn't want to be robbed, so I spent some time buying things at the auctionhouse.

Lee and Dan seemed to have some piddling exhibits, and Amanda tended to be the victim of thieves. As she was usually in first place, it wasn't as beneficial for her to play detectives, and Rakesh and Dan really used their detectives to move up a lot, usually from 3rd place for Dan, and anywhere from 3rd to 5th for Rakesh.

In fact, despite Amanda's excellent early exhibits, she was only a little bit ahead at the midway point because the last place folks were using their detectives. Also, whenever Amanda (who was in the lead) was in a 2/1 space, the detectives came out like crazy. Twice there were three detectives played without catching a thief, and both times occurred on a 2/1 space.

At about the 2/3 point, I ran out of checks and went for a bunch of displays. (Though I spent consecutive turns unhindered in the Auctionhouse first stealing then buying one more piece.) Amanda's display had been whittled down a bit by several thieves, so I thought I'd be able to win if I didn't get mauled too badly by thieves over the last two turns. At one castle turn, Lee thieved while Amanda and I gave exhibits. I warned her that she wants to do well, but not get robbed too badly as the end game came up. When I said that, she went small, and I beat her for 1st, but she got upset that I "tricked" her and tried to renege and put out all her cards. I told her she couldn't see what I did and then play the whole hand! I think her display may have been crippled by Lee if she had done that, as he could have stolen a keystone card, like a C or a B. (She had a ton of A's.)

The next turn, Amanda and Rakesh went to the Auction house, and I managed to get into the final table area. We then made our final displays. I was worried that Amanda might have passed me by getting one final card in the auction house, but there were a few F's she couldn't connect, and my exhibit was the best by 1. I ended up farthest along the table, followed by Amanda.

Everyone seemed to be hurt by thieves as the game went on, and Lee had a mediocre exhibit that he refused to augment by stealing until very late. I thought he was trying only to play a thief at the very perfectest moment. Sometimes you gotta let the guy get captured in the hopes of getting some doo-dads, though.

When we were putting the game away, Amanda we saw had about 7 or 8 check cards that she had managed to steal several times. I said something along the lines of "holy smokes" and she said, "I was so stupid. I should have bought more stuff." Well, she still took a very close second, so I don't think she should have been so hard on herself.

Ricochet Robot

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Lee	5	1
Mike	4	2
Rakesh	0	3	*
Dan	DNF	4 (Tie)	*
Amanda	DNF	4 (Tie)	*

Notes: Now I know why I usually start with this game. Whoof! It's a bit of a brain-burner to begin with, and then on a weeknight after polishing off three or four bottles of wine and a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips...

Credit goes to Lee for not giving up. My brain had fried immediately after getting the fourth chip, and Rakesh, though he didn't get any of the puzzles, enjoyed seeing them solved. After every solution, he said, "Wow! I could never do that!" or "Very very nice!" or "That's awesome!" (Have I mentioned that Rakesh is easily impressed?)

Dan was too fried to do it, and I'm not sure he would be that into it on the best of days. Amanda said she'd need a piece of paper to do it, and gave up quickly after this announcement. Lee, Rakesh, and I slogged it out.

I was up 4 to 1, then Lee took the next 4, and that was that. I almost had five, but on one puzzle, which Lee said "27" or something, I saw another way to do it, but I had no time to work it out perfectly, so I said "13." It happened to take 15, which meant I had to relinquish the chip to Lee.

All of the puzzles were pretty elaborate. Amanda started the game by putting the robots in the 4 corners, which made the first puzzle pretty long. After that, no puzzle took us less than 8, and the average was probably 10 or 11. Usually, there's a couple of 4's or 5's in there, but not in this game, and not for us, who were so full of fermented grape juice that just looking at the board without getting dizzy proved challenge enough.