August 03, 2011

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Esther

Nadine, I, and Saarya were the only three participants at the first "official" JSGC night back in October 2003, so it's only right that Nadine, I and someone are the only members at the last JSGC night that I shepherd (for the foreseeable future). Esther is new; she called me on Sunday having just heard about the club. She was rather disappointed to learn that I was leaving the group and handing it off to Nadine and Gili.

But, after all, with attendance between 2 and 4 every week, it's gotten pretty pathetic. Our regulars weren't.

Some of them said that they were busy during the academic year, or busy on Wednesdays, and might be able to come again starting soon. Esther enjoyed her game tonight and wants to come again. We will see. It's up to Nadine and Gili, now.

It's Alive

Nadine 52, Jon 43

We weren't sure if anyone else was coming. I had packed all my games away and moved them to Raanana, so we met at Nadine's house. This was one of the few two-player short games that she had available.

Despite the fact that I count points and Nadine doesn't, she beat me handily. Apparently I still don't quite know what I'm doing in this game.

Puerto Rico

Nadine 56, Jon 42

The ignominy. In what I thought would be the group's last game, Nadine beat me handily again. Mostly because she started with corn and I had allowed Harbor in the game, when I usually replace it with Large Business. Nadine had both Factory and Harbor, despite not having a trade good.

Jon 53+, Esther 53-, Nadine 50

I left after the two-player game, thinking that we were done, but after I left I got a call from Nadine that Esther had shown up after all, so I came back. Esther had played Settlers of Catan. We thought it a reasonable choice to try her on Puerto Rico.

It was a good choice. She loved the game. We played with the straight up standard set of buildings. Nadine took an early Harbor over Factory, and she also had a coffee monopoly and bought Guild Hall. However, she sat to my left, and I managed to block many of her moves during the game. She often only had one boat on which to ship and she didn't get any corn until the last few turns of the game.

I was pretty sure that Esther was winning by a good 7 points of so. She was shipping well, trading tobacco, had a Factory and Wharf, had two big buildings, and was the only one to complete her board. But we ended up tying because I had Harbor and better control of the boats. I won the tie with 4 corn barrels and a doubloon versus Esther's 4 doubloons.

And that was the end.