Some days are just hard days, and yesterday was one. A project at work is better than none, but a doomed one that I don't really understand is frustrating.
I spent a few extra hours at work and came home stunned and depressed. I needed Tal to play a game with me, and I chose San Juan.
I opened with Carpenter, while Tal opened with Prefecture. She had Library by turn four, and then Chapel. It looked grim, but she is still young. I had Silver and then Library soon after, and I picked all of the six pointers I needed, while she only got out City Hall. Close game, 42 to 36.
I thanked her and sent her off to bed, as it was already late. I probably should have been more gracious about it. She'll get an extra kiss tonight.
My father had his hopefully last surgery for his internal ileostomy, yesterday (following the first surgery and then six months of chemotherapy). A few more days in the hospital and maybe maybe he can get on with his life.
Yehuda
Showing posts with label san juan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label san juan. Show all posts
Monday, April 24, 2006
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
San Juan with the Wife
I wasn't bored of Puerto Rico, but I was bored of setting it up, so I convinced Rachel to play San Juan for a change.
She had both City Hall and Guild Hall, but her buildings didn't have any of the synergy that mine had. I had no opening production, so I started with Carpenter, then Silver, Quarry, monuments, City Hall, and Chapel. I didn't realize you could win like that with less big buildings (I knew you could win with less big buildings, but not by ten points).
Game night tonight. My group wanted to play RPG, so I prepared a system based on Children of Fire and a simple d6 skill/combat system, but they weren't ready for such wierdness. They want to play straight D&D; I refuse to play 3e, so it will be 1e AD&D. But I'm not ready for that, yet, so in a few weeks.
In the meantime, we may play Magic and some other games.
Yehuda
She had both City Hall and Guild Hall, but her buildings didn't have any of the synergy that mine had. I had no opening production, so I started with Carpenter, then Silver, Quarry, monuments, City Hall, and Chapel. I didn't realize you could win like that with less big buildings (I knew you could win with less big buildings, but not by ten points).
Game night tonight. My group wanted to play RPG, so I prepared a system based on Children of Fire and a simple d6 skill/combat system, but they weren't ready for such wierdness. They want to play straight D&D; I refuse to play 3e, so it will be 1e AD&D. But I'm not ready for that, yet, so in a few weeks.
In the meantime, we may play Magic and some other games.
Yehuda
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Weekend Gaming
I went to my brother Ben for shabbat. He has a lot of little kids which makes it hard to find any time to game. We managed to get in a few, anyway.
Ben is a champion bridge player, and he often has a hand he recently played to show me. This time, he had answered an ad from someone looking for a serious bridge partner for one gaming session for the one week he was in Israel. Ben responded, and they had a good night of bridge at one of the local clubs. The last hand of the day was the one that resulted in their coming in 4th place instead of 1st. They failed to make a hand that was makeable, but not easily.
You are in 6 spades, and your opponents have already taken the first trick, the ace of diamonds. You get in with the next trick. Your RHO had 4 trumps to the jack and you have 7 in your hand and the singleton ace on the board. Obviously you find out about the split after taking the ace, playing to your hand, and then playing the king. You can take every other trick, but how to get that jack of trumps?
You need to play cards out of dummy until RHO trumps, at which point you overtrump and then take the rest. The problem is that if RHO keeps ducking, eventually you will run out of everything in your hand other than trumps. Eventually, you will have to take a trump in your hand and lead away from it, giving him the jack.
The only way to make it is to purposely ruff winning tricks, so as to run yourself out of all but two trumps, and then play the remaining cards from dummy. Cute.
Anyhow, Ben, myself, and Saarya got in a game of Cosmic. We played 3 hidden powers, where you get to reveal two. Ben was Aristocrat/Spiff, Saarya was Miser/Warrior, I was Visionary/Deuce. Ben chose Spiff after Warrior grew large enough to always give him a Spiff landing.
Saarya and Ben both started off with a lot of flourish, whereas I played very low key, and eventually won with very low key moves. Visionary did a lot of the work.
Afterwards, I took croquet balls and played Bocce/Croquet with Tal and Ben, throwing one ball across the yard, and taking turns hitting our own balls until one of us hit the thrown ball. What do you know, I can still balance a croquet mallet on my fingers, and I can still juggle croquet balls.
Towards the end of the day we players San Juan - I drew garbage, while they each drew Library. They made short mincemeat of me. Ben won 36 to Tal's 33, and my 26. Both played with lots of producing and trading. Ben had his Well, and Tal 1 of each production building, eventually ending with 8 production buildings, Guild Hall, and little else. Ben had City Hall and Palace.
I have now committed myself to publish the first part of my story on Gone Gaming, and I don't know if it's ready! I don't know if I like this deadline thing...
Yehuda
Ben is a champion bridge player, and he often has a hand he recently played to show me. This time, he had answered an ad from someone looking for a serious bridge partner for one gaming session for the one week he was in Israel. Ben responded, and they had a good night of bridge at one of the local clubs. The last hand of the day was the one that resulted in their coming in 4th place instead of 1st. They failed to make a hand that was makeable, but not easily.
You are in 6 spades, and your opponents have already taken the first trick, the ace of diamonds. You get in with the next trick. Your RHO had 4 trumps to the jack and you have 7 in your hand and the singleton ace on the board. Obviously you find out about the split after taking the ace, playing to your hand, and then playing the king. You can take every other trick, but how to get that jack of trumps?
You need to play cards out of dummy until RHO trumps, at which point you overtrump and then take the rest. The problem is that if RHO keeps ducking, eventually you will run out of everything in your hand other than trumps. Eventually, you will have to take a trump in your hand and lead away from it, giving him the jack.
The only way to make it is to purposely ruff winning tricks, so as to run yourself out of all but two trumps, and then play the remaining cards from dummy. Cute.
Anyhow, Ben, myself, and Saarya got in a game of Cosmic. We played 3 hidden powers, where you get to reveal two. Ben was Aristocrat/Spiff, Saarya was Miser/Warrior, I was Visionary/Deuce. Ben chose Spiff after Warrior grew large enough to always give him a Spiff landing.
Saarya and Ben both started off with a lot of flourish, whereas I played very low key, and eventually won with very low key moves. Visionary did a lot of the work.
Afterwards, I took croquet balls and played Bocce/Croquet with Tal and Ben, throwing one ball across the yard, and taking turns hitting our own balls until one of us hit the thrown ball. What do you know, I can still balance a croquet mallet on my fingers, and I can still juggle croquet balls.
Towards the end of the day we players San Juan - I drew garbage, while they each drew Library. They made short mincemeat of me. Ben won 36 to Tal's 33, and my 26. Both played with lots of producing and trading. Ben had his Well, and Tal 1 of each production building, eventually ending with 8 production buildings, Guild Hall, and little else. Ben had City Hall and Palace.
I have now committed myself to publish the first part of my story on Gone Gaming, and I don't know if it's ready! I don't know if I like this deadline thing...
Yehuda
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Bat Mitzvah, Come and Gone
Well, all four of my children are now Bar or Bat Mitzvah'ed. Makes me old, although I still feel pretty young. I'm only 36.
Friday morning I took out a few moments to play Crossword Squares with Tal. A cute little pen and paper game, quick. Players alternate picking letters to fill their personal 5 x 5 grid with words. At the end of the game, players score 1, 2, and 4 points for 3, 4, and 5 letter words. Across and down only, overlaps ok, but not wholly contained words. (This is called Maven on BGG)
Shabbat afternoon, after the hard part was over, games were played in my house:
- I played Scrabble with Rachel, who quit after I got a bingo (Gastric) and a triple word, while she only had 4 R's in her hand.
- I introduced San Juan to a neighbor's child and my brother's child, both of whom have played Puerto Rico. I thought that the game was a foregone conclusion for one of them when he started off with Carpenter, Quarry, and Prefecture, but they reported a tie game, with the other player winning by hand count. Later, Saarya said they probably miscounted the points.
- I then introduced the above children and my brother to Taj Mahal. Fortunes waxed and waned, but eventually I pulled ahead. The last round was close, but I kept my lead by a few points. I played mostly commodities, and my main opponents had a mixture of both. My brother had an initial early lead, but overextended himself, and then complained as the game wound down and he was no longer in contention. Afterwards, he reflected that the game will take some learning to figure out. First game is a learning game, as I always say.
- Little children played cards, and Taki (Uno), and other such fluff.
We lent El Grande to the neighbors as their kid left, although none of them ever played it. I hope they managed to figure it out.
This week is both Yom Hazikaron - memorial day in Israel - and Yom Haazmaut - Independence day - so I don't think there will be an official game club evening. Maybe during the day sometime.
Yehuda
Friday morning I took out a few moments to play Crossword Squares with Tal. A cute little pen and paper game, quick. Players alternate picking letters to fill their personal 5 x 5 grid with words. At the end of the game, players score 1, 2, and 4 points for 3, 4, and 5 letter words. Across and down only, overlaps ok, but not wholly contained words. (This is called Maven on BGG)
Shabbat afternoon, after the hard part was over, games were played in my house:
- I played Scrabble with Rachel, who quit after I got a bingo (Gastric) and a triple word, while she only had 4 R's in her hand.
- I introduced San Juan to a neighbor's child and my brother's child, both of whom have played Puerto Rico. I thought that the game was a foregone conclusion for one of them when he started off with Carpenter, Quarry, and Prefecture, but they reported a tie game, with the other player winning by hand count. Later, Saarya said they probably miscounted the points.
- I then introduced the above children and my brother to Taj Mahal. Fortunes waxed and waned, but eventually I pulled ahead. The last round was close, but I kept my lead by a few points. I played mostly commodities, and my main opponents had a mixture of both. My brother had an initial early lead, but overextended himself, and then complained as the game wound down and he was no longer in contention. Afterwards, he reflected that the game will take some learning to figure out. First game is a learning game, as I always say.
- Little children played cards, and Taki (Uno), and other such fluff.
We lent El Grande to the neighbors as their kid left, although none of them ever played it. I hope they managed to figure it out.
This week is both Yom Hazikaron - memorial day in Israel - and Yom Haazmaut - Independence day - so I don't think there will be an official game club evening. Maybe during the day sometime.
Yehuda
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)