Shavuot Gaming

I followed Tal to one of her friend's, whose parents are also friends with my parents, and discovered that the parents are secret Cities & Knights of Catan players. How come I didn't know about this when I was living in Beit Shemesh?

How did they get into the game? The guy was on his way to a theater in the US, and the theater ended up being closed, so he popped next door into an FLGS and asked for a recommendation to bring back to his family. It was Settlers of Catan.

They also had Bananagrams (popular in Israel), which Tal played with her friend, and Zobmondo's Would You Rather?, as well as some other fluff.

I played a three-way C&K game with the couple. I started out strong, but I couldn't gain an ore to save my life, or much in the way of wheat, either. The other two caught up to me, but I stayed 1 point ahead of each of them throughout the game - despite trying NOT to do so, since several cards give a benefit only if you have less VP than another player.

Eventually, one of them succeed in gaining 1 point more than I had, and I got to use my card. The game was close. When I made it to 8 points, I planned out the rest of my game. I plunked down a settlement and then finally had enough to upgrade to my second city. The next round I played Merchant and a road to steal Longest Road.

This was my first time playing C&K 4th edition, and there are a few changes from third edition. For example, the Saboteur, instead of knocking down someone's city, makes them discard half their resource cards. There were a few other small changes like that.

Prototype

I left them to visit Abbagav, who was playing a card game he had designed with his kids. He had also brought it to the Beit Shemesh board game club a week or so ago.

I liked it. It's in the same space as No Thanks and Parade, but a little odder and perhaps a little more frustrating to figure out. I will have to analyze it more to see how it replays. More about it when I can.

Bridge

I also played a number of hands of Bridge with my mom, aunt, and uncle. It's been a long time since my aunt and uncle have played.

The Break

I decided to get a tutor for my daughter in math, rather than constantly engage in nightly attempts to tutor her myself. It's not that she's bad at math, or that I'm bad at teaching; it's just something in the dynamic.

To compensate, I continue to give her attention by playing a weekly game with her. This week it was Cities and Knights of Catan.

She's new to the game, so it wasn't hard for me to jump ahead, despite my being concentrated in one area and her having the rest of the board. We had no sheep, so we both lost our initial cities. I then built up to Aqueduct, green metropolis, a triangular city state, and from there I won by building Longest Road, Merchant, and a settlement in one go.

Cities and Knights is one of those games that I "played out". You get the game, you play it to death, you put it aside. And then, after a break, you bring it back out for one session to play casually. As you rotate it back into non-obsessive casual play, you being to appreciate it again, especially if you play it with new players.

This has happened to me with several games; I imagine that it has happened to most of you as well.

The Real Truth, A Christian magazine, weighs in on video games, and the results are not pretty.

Meanwhile, the University of Richmond is teaching classes in poker.

The world is going to Hell in a hand basket.

Yehuda