Gathering on

Still having trouble connecting to the 'geek, so again no hot links..

I walked into the hall around 11 and saw folks learning Breaking Away. This is a game I've wanted to try for years and I finally got the chance! I joined Paul, Chuck, Ray, Brian, Brian and Mark at the table for a couple laps around the Velodrome. Long and short, I really enjoyed it. I suspect the 21 riders in the race due to so many players upped the interest level.


Next I grabbed lunch and ran into Matthew. Earlier in the week I'd mentioned wanting to try 1960: Making of a President, and he reminded me and offered to teach. Now that's an offer I can't refuse. I played the bad guys and we went to work trying to influence states to win the election. I enjoyed the game, but it lacked the build up and tension of Twilight Struggle from my point of view. I'd gladly play again, but don't need to own it.

We had some more time, so I offered to teach a prototype I'd learned earlier in the week to Matt and Becky. Ron joined us and we had a blast. Suffice it to say there is still plenty of room in the civilization building genre for innovation and good new games.

Matthew had another obligation and Ron departed, so we got up to look for a next game. Ted and Travis were looking to play Toledo and asked if I knew it and could teach. I agreed, and after realizing they could fit two more sat down with Becky to play. Unfortunately, this time through the game dragged a bit, and I saw my concern with the players determining game ending condition resurface again. For the second game in a row I won when I was able to get my second pawn to the ending on the same turn that the apparent leader ended the game. I like the game in general, but the end game really detracts for me from the overall experience.


We went to dinner with Ted, Travis and a couple of the guys from Fantasy Flight. Upon returning Ted taught us Year of the Dragon, a game he really likes that none of the three of us had played. Doug also joined in and we embarked upon trying to survive the eight horrible months out of the twelve in front of us. It is a very clever game that I did quite poorly at. The play dragged a bit at our table, so I'd need to try again to really set my assessment, but my first impressions are quite good. Another Alea game that sits just a bit outside the mold, which to me is a good thing.

Next up I played the poker tournament. Around eighty players signed up for this no-cost, no limit hold-em format. As the starting time was 9:30 and they wanted it to end at a reasonable time the blinds shot upward at a startling rate. I was playing about even (nearly doubling my chips) at the first break an hour later and already about half the players had dropped. Still, it turned out my chip stack was only about 9x the big blind. After a poor play on the second hand after the break I was sitting on seven blinds. With a 10,A of hearts in the hole and two hearts showing on the board after the flop I raised 2 blinds and the player after me went all in. I decided to go for it, but the needed draw didn't come out. Still, I think it was the right decision due to both the pot odds and the need to have a big stack to keep going in a tournament like this.

As I wandered away from the poker tables Mark called on me to play Show Manager as the sixth they had sat down with ended up with another obligation. I gladly jumped in and joined Bob, Gary, Mark, Berna and Pat trying to put on the best shows. This whole group plays now, or has in the past played in their local game groups, so there was a lot of gabbing and storytelling through the game, Mark in particular being in fine form. Unusually, several of us ended up with the same final show, and the deck literally ran out of cards for some positions in that show, with not even wilds to grab to fill the slots. One player swept the board enough times in one turn to see every single card in order to prove it. Always a fun game, I like this version much better than Atlantic Star, and wish they'd reprint.


I wasn't quite ready to go to bed, but ran into Bryan who was checking out Pizza Box Baseball. I asked if I could sit down and we could learn the rules together. He agreed, and once we figured out the mis-collated rule book (another copy was there, we just picked up the wrong one) we were able to quickly begin playing the simplest level of the game. This game uses cards instead of dice, but in about half an hour we were able to play a full game. The outcomes look like real baseball scores (I won 5-4 with 12 hits and an error). My one disappointment would be that it doesn't seem to support having specific named players or pro-teams, instead opting for a more generic pitcher ranking and batter order approach. Still, probably a good light game for the baseball fan.

At that it was time for bed again.