November 11, 2009

Participants: Nadine, Abraham, Gili, David

This is the second week that I'm away. Session report is by Nadine.

Stone Age

Abraham 191, Gili 145, Nadine 102

Huge dice rolling luck for Abraham at the beginning. After one roll he
noticed a die shaved on the six side so we took it out. We should have let
me and Gili each use it once. I was third and behind on food and everything
so I went to a starvation strategy even though I had two food and hadn't
planned it out well. Abe had buildings and cards, Gili had a lot of cards.
David came partway through at the time we thought Emily and Eitan were
coming so he kibbitzed. I think Stone Age doesn't build to the end of the
game, you just what you can at the end, it's less related to what other
people are doing at that point, so less tension than other games.

Power Grid

Nadine 18/18 + 28, Gili 18/18 + 16, Abe 16/16, David 15/15

A lot of big plants came out early. And we played wrong, forgot to toss the
3 upon building to 3, so one early round would have been very different.
Second to last round when Step 3 was showing and came down, David was second
to last to bid and I was last. Gili and Abe had plants. David bid on a 4
plant, planning that I would bid for it, and he could wait and take the 31,
a six. So I passed, I had noticed the 31 would come down without asking. At
that point he realized that his plan was not a good idea, he didn't even
want the 4 plant. I thought he wasn't going to bid, I didn't need the four.
The six brought me to 16, otherwise I would have been tied with Abe, and he
would have tried to build to 17 and possibly won. So we don't know what
would have happened in all these other cases. Last round Gili got a 7, I
took a 6. If I had to bid high for a 7, I might not have had enough money,
but mainly the 7 had coal which Abe could buy out. Abe let Gili have the
plant cheaply because he couldn't win and to offset David's mistake which
had helped me. A long and fun game, a lot of tension and interaction in the
last two rounds, and throughout. A difference of 12 at the end really is a
tie, it's not due to better playing like a difference of 50+ is.