Wednesday

Wednesday morning Jon left early and volunteered at registration, and saved spaces in line for Bill and Shirley but not for me, we were in different lines alphabetically. We didn’t get there until close to 10, which I thought was late. I talked to people I was in line with, very representative of the participants – computer programmers from Texas. I said that I was surprised that the line wasn’t moving, they told me it doesn’t open til 10. So we got there at the right time, it went pretty quickly, all very organized. You pick a free game or two upon registering, I took Highland Clans and Train of Thought, I'm not familiar with either of them.

I had read about a new game, introduced at the recent huge Essen game con in Germany, Walnut Grove, which I was thinking of buying it and wanted to try it out. All day Wednesday and Thursday, whenever I went by it in the Hot Games room, which has Essen games set up, either a game was already in progress or there was no one there. I not only needed players, but someone to teach it.

K2

I walked around looking at games, and ended up joining one in the large main game room, K2. One of the people playing was Mischa, a friend of Jon’s who runs the bgg math trade. I had traded one game but wasn’t going to be able to attend the official trade time on Saturday, so I had emailed the person I needed to give my game to, and the person who was giving me a game. The backup plan was to leave the game with Mischa.

K2 has a simple structure with deeper strategy than it appears.You expend points for climbing and oxygen, selected from cards you pick. I didn’t understand certain things right away, so I was behind most of the game. The other woman player was doing really well, she got both of her climbers to the very top, and down again alive, without even pitching a tent which reduces oxygen required. We were playing on the easy side of the board, with only summer weather, but it was still challenging. At the end, two players weren’t able to prevent either one or both of their climbers from dying, which results in a complete loss of points, so I came in second.

First Sparks

I went back into the Hot Games room and sat down by Walnut Grove, but no players came, and I was hungry, so I found the others and we took a break for lunch. I tried again after lunch, but switched to a game nearby which was starting, First Sparks, by the creator of Power Grid. The game is similar to Power Grid which helped us figure out how to play, and someone came over to teach it. One person hadn’t played Power Grid so we gave him some tips. It has a cave man theme and is simpler than Power Grid. The card structure is similar, but you place cavemen competitively for end game points.

We found out near the end of the game, because someone overheard us, that one of the changes from Power Grid is that you don’t bid for cards, rather you have right of refusal in turn order, so you never pay more than the amount on the card. We hadn’t had much competitive bidding, so it wouldn’t have made a big difference in the game, the card movement and availability are the same. I tied to win and had 3 vs. 1 food left to win the tiebreaker. I want to get this game because it’s good with attractive graphics, and I don’t have Power Grid. The store at the con finally got it from the airport on Friday, but it will be available for less at other stores, hopefully in time for Bill and Shirley to bring it.

Coney Island

Then I played Coney Island in the large room. I had this on my wishlist at one point, but couldn’t remember if I had taken it off or not. After playing, I was really hoping that I wouldn’t receive it as my Secret Santa gift. No one liked it, there are so many better games. We all helped each other as we tried to figure out the game. At one point, they recommended that I make a different move, where if I got a red tile instead of white tile in a random draw, I would get 9 points. It worked, which helped me, though I was still behind. I did start to understand the game by the end, by which time things were mostly already placed. I did what I could, and somehow ended up winning by one point.

Flash Point

Then I joined a firefighting game, Flash Point, an Essen game but in the main room. I didn’t realize it was cooperative, but it was interesting. We were playing with intro rules which meant no firetrucks and hoses, which must make it more interesting. I was fighting fires, everyone else was rescuing people. The game actions cause explosions and destruction. We ended up losing, the house collapsed before we could rescue everyone. But I was the only one who didn’t die because I happened to be outside the house. We had bad luck with the people, the first two tokens were blank rather than victims. It’s a good game because there’s a lot of fast action and some planning.

Jon came with me to try to get a game of Walnut Grove going. Scott Nicholson of Board Games with Scott walked by, he didn’t want to play but gave us a quick rules explanation. More players didn’t join, and Jon decided he was too tired to play a new game.

Niagara

We walked around a bit, Jon agreed to teach Tobago, and I saw a game of Niagara which I had heard of because one year I gave one of my Secret Santa targets a Niagara exapansion. Jon ended up playing Tobago, so I went back to join Niagara. It’s a good game, simple and cute mechanics, you physically move plastic discs in the river which push your canoes around and over the edge sometimes. It’s very difficult, an experienced player won. They played again but I left.

It was freezing cold on Wednesday, we didn’t have all our warm clothes with us because it had been so warm the day before. The rest of the week it warmed up with sun and some clouds, but we were mainly indoors.

Chitin: I

Bill and Shirley played the redesigned Chitin: I, which Bill had a copy of when he was in high school.

Thursday

Nefarious

Jon and I started off playing Nefarious, by the designer of Dominion. It took me a while to understand it, but it didn’t matter that much because we had crazy condition cards. I came in second.

Tanto Cuore

Then we walked around and played a game similar to Dominion, Tanto Cuore. It’s Japanese with a theme of hiring maids, Jon had heard of it, and they had a demonstrator in a skimpy maid costume. Jon’s really good at Dominion, I’ve beaten him like once and usually don’t even come close. We thought we understood the game well, but didn’t understand the set-aside mechanic which is not in Dominion. I did very well, but Jon still beat me, 51 to 47, with 30 for the demonstrator, who may not play as hard as possible, or you can’t get good players to wear a maid costume.

I reached the person giving me Agricola by phone, and on the way to Madras Pavilion for lunch we picked it up from him by his hotel. Madras Pavilion was great even though it’s not a pavilion but in a strip mall. Really good kosher vegetarian Indian food, with Bill as a very helpful guide to Indian food.

Space Mission

After lunch Bill, Shirley and I went to pick a game from the game library. Bill wanted a space theme, so we picked Space Mission from the Essen games, and went into the main room. While we were trying to figure out how to play two other players joined us, one was Simon Strange. We managed to work it out, it’s a nice simple game. Tom won the tie with Simon at 39, Shirley and I had 30 and Bill 29. I commented on the nice look of the planets, Simon said better than ours. It turns out that he is a video game developer of Hellboy: Asylum Seeker and Godzilla: Save the Earth among others. He’s now working on a space-themed board game, with prototype artwork including planets, hence his comment. After Space Mission, Bill, Shirley and another player played his prototype with him. It looked too route-like so I decided not to play. Simon also play-tested Bill’s game and provided feedback.

Navegador

I played Navegador, which I had played once before. I had won that game, but we played something wrong so I shouldn’t have won. This game was the first time for everyone else, someone came by and gave a quick overview. I made a mistake on my first move and was behind the rest of the game. Two of the other players were doing really well, one was doing terribly. He improved, and we ended up tying for last place, he won the tiebreaker, so I lost.

At dinner, Jon said that I played Navegador which he likes, and he played Walnut Grove, which I wanted to play, and didn’t know til then that he had gotten to play. By then, his Secret Santa had written me that he got Navegador and Incan Empire for Jon.

Puerto Rico

Jon and I wanted to try the game library’s copy of the fancy new 10^th anniversary edition of Puerto Rico, but it was checked out so we took the regular one. The new version is approved for sale in Europe, but not in the U.S. because of the lead in the coins, they have to reprint them. Jon held it up for a few minutes and two players joined, one had played before. Jon’s much better than me at Puerto Rico, but I can beat him. I’m also not experienced or good at 4-player, we usually play 3-player, and online I play 3-player.

One of the other players crafted into Jon, who was able to trade sugar with two role coins, and he pretty much had the game from there with a coffee monopoly. I got blocked out of trading and couldn’t get anything going. I had a small warehouse, but no harbor, factory or wharf. One player, who only had tobacco and corn, took a harbor at one point. He had enough for a wharf, but I didn’t say anything, because he seemed to know what he was doing, having rejected advice before. But it turns out he had a wrong impression of how harbor works, so I should have mentioned it. I did tell him later that he should consider shipping, which he did, to my detriment. It’s always hard to know how much to help other players, they learn more by making mistakes, but it also makes the game more frustrating. Jon won by less than I expected, but still a lot, I came in second. 58, 45, 40, 37.

Gifts

We stopped by our hotel office to check for packages. Jon could see a package behind the counter. The desk clerk said it wasn’t for us and went to check the back, nothing there either. Jon asked again about the package he could see, which was a big box. The clerk showed it to us to prove that it wasn’t ours, but he was looking at the return address. It was my Secret Santa package, with an Agricola expansion and London, and Jungle Speed for my kids.

Jon had played Inca Empire on Thursday and liked it, which was handy since that was one of his Secret Santa games. We picked up his package Friday on the way to David’s for Shabbat.

Shabbat

Friday

Friday morning Shirley and I packed up, loaded the car, checked out and drove over to the Westin. Jon had gone over early as usual, and Bill was going to Proto Alley that morning to demo his role playing game. He had also done a demo the night before for people he had gotten in touch with before the con. The game sounds interesting with an unusual structure – no DM and an internal economic system. He got a good reception with useful feedback.

I collected all our Spare Squares cards and matched them into sets, and labeled them and the envelopes to turn in. At lunch, Jon scored all the entries to date. The one I did for Shirley scored well, we thought it wouldn’t look right if she won, but Jon said not to worry, there would be higher scores, and there were.

Walnut Grove

Shirley and I sat down at the Walnut Grove table and I finally got to play. A guy from Brazil offered to teach the game, then decided to stay and play because it’s quick, and another guy, who had played before, also joined. I like the game because there’s very little down time, it’s not complicated, but has good decision-making. The guy who had played before beat me by one point, if I had one more cube I could have cancelled my -2 point loan and won.

Later, when I was thinking about the strategy in the game, I realized that I played wrong on the last turn, and actually lost by 2 points. I wanted to make one more enclosure, and I needed one more wood, but I couldn’t enclose my wood area. So I enclosed a different wood area to get the last wood, forgetting that I needed a worker there to produce. So I should have expanded my wood area and lost the extra point for the enclosure. I had 29 points, the winner 31. I got 18 points minus 2 for a loan from having 3 building multipliers. I didn’t realize how they interact so that was good for my score, but probably won’t happen again. We had an advantage during the game because the double production sections came up first round. I may like First Sparks better just because of the graphics, I’ll have to think about that. Well, it’s also a meatier game.

I gave Mischa my game for the math trade, and later ran into him with the person, who preferred to wait for the game rather than carry it around. Jon tracked down most of his games also. He’s taking back a lot of games including 4 or 5 of mine.

Shaarei Tefillah

Friday afternoon was a big rush, more than usual. We ran into a lot of traffic, we saw later that there had been an accident. We left at 3 to arrive at 4, we arrived around 4:15, Shabbat starts right after 5 in Dallas, not 4 like most places this time of year. Jon had the wrong address which delayed us slightly because we had unloaded the trunk and had to reload and re-unload, or rather Bill did. I was staying with someone else who wasn’t home yet, so I helped in the kitchen while the others were moving furniture and making beds. Then I wheeled my suitcase over, took it upstairs, made my bed, got ready, practically threw a gift at the hostess who had already lit, and rushed back for candlelighting and shul. We drove to shul which confused Bill and Shirley, they’re not used to the one-way drive system. No singing during Friday night services, nor dancing, I miss my shul.

I wanted to find out where my friend Joel Zeff was in Dallas, but his wife hadn’t known the name of his shul when I contacted her on Facebook. We were staying with David Elkin, I’d met him several times at Jon’s, he lives in Modiin but spends a semester each year teaching at SMU, and Jon always spends his bgg.con Shabbat with him. David was staying with Hanan Schlesinger, who lives in Alon Shvut but works in Dallas, not so unusual for Israelis. It turns out that Hanan and Joel work together; they had invited Joel for dinner but he was doing something else, he didn’t know that I’d be there. Joel gave two shiurim at shul they next day which I enjoyed. Hanan has met my kids in Alon Shvut through Joel though he didn’t remember them in particular. Eli is currently working with Joel’s son-in-law Micah Smith on set design for videos. At the tisch after dinner, playing Jewish geography, they discovered pretty quickly that the rabbi being honored had taught at the school Jon attended in West Hempstead.

London

Shabbat afternoon, Jon wasn’t feeling well and went to sleep. Bill, Shirley and I tried out London, with Hanan watching us struggle through the directions for a while. The rules weren’t very clear, even with examples, but we eventually started playing. Jon came down towards the end, right as we were trying to understand a card, which said that you’re exempt from receiving (negative) poverty points from hand cards, because we hadn’t been taking poverty points for those. Jon couldn’t understand how we missed such a basic rule. Which changes the game considerably, so we’ll have to try it the real way. In our game, Shirley won and Bill came in second.

Awards and Prizes

Saturday night is the main con meeting for everyone, where they announce the bgg game of the year winners and raffle prizes. Jon was also announcing the Spare Squares winners, entry deadline was 5:30 Saturday. When that was planned, he hadn’t realized that Shabbat ends at 6:07, so it was another rush to pack up after Shabbat and get back in time. We made it with 10 minutes to spare, and they didn’t start right at 7. It’s fun to see the game winners announced after reading about it for years on bgg, same for many aspects of the con.

The guy sitting across from me won awards for artwork on two games.

In the end there wasn't time for Jon to come up so Aldie announced the Spare Squares winners. Jon got the envelopes later, there were a lot of entries, and perfect scores where they drew for the winner. I hadn’t understood the tracks, I thought they were by letter, but they were by card section.

We had our raffle tickets but didn't win any prizes like this lucky person.

Occupy bgg.con showed up with signs about Meeple rights.

Agricola

Jon had planned a game of Agricola with friends of his, Jim and Chris. I’d played Puerto Rico with Chris when he visited the group in Jerusalem. Jon had said more could play, Bill decided not to, Shirley was going to work on her laptop, and they also went out to get some dinner. We played in a side room, very calm and quiet. We selected 7 out of 10 for the cards. I had bad cards, and played poorly from the start. Jim was doing really well with tons of food, but then stalled. Jon was doing well, he took actions I wanted a few times, mainly because he was going before me; it didn’t matter since I wasn’t going to win. Jon ended up winning by two, we were the only ones with all our spaces filled, but he had animals and points, I had to kill most of mine for food and never got offspring.

Sunday

Sunday morning we packed and checked out again. Bill and Shirley were leaving to drive back to KC, they dropped us off with our luggage so we could take the shuttle from the Westin.

Last Will

I wanted to play the new game by the Agricola designer, but the games were in progress, I didn’t have that much time, and another game looked like it was starting. I had seen it and it looked interesting, Last Will. It puts you in a counter intuitive situation where you’re trying to spend money rather than save it. As we were starting, a fifth player asked to join, he had played before but not a full game. I asked questions and thought I understood the game, but I got the victory condition wrong. I thought you need to be at zero by the seventh round and then there’s an end game mechanic. But it’s actually a race to see who finishes first, at that point it’s the person with the least including negative money. I don’t know if I could have done better if I had gotten that; I would have done better if I understood everything from the beginning. I came in third, I had two left, the guy who had played before had minus 6 and another one had zero. I don’t think I like the game, it doesn’t feel very strategic, rather tactical and limited control affected by turn order.

Airport

I took the shuttle at 11 for a 1:35 flight to SF which was actually scheduled for 1:48, I didn’t have time for another game anyway. People on the shuttle said there were fewer locals this year, to me it seemed like mostly locals at the con, counting Kansas and Oklahoma. I went through checkin and security in half an hour, it took that long because one self serve kiosk didn’t work and the one I used didn’t print my luggage tag so I had to wait for an agent. I’m used to Newark where everything takes forever.

I found a plug and chair at an adjacent gate, so I couldn’t see my flight info. And I couldn’t get up without packing up my laptop. It needed to charge, and if I got it fully charged I could use it on the plane. At 1:35 I went to see and found out that the flight was delayed at least an hour due to bad weather in SF. So I plugged in again and tried to keep an eye on the far gate. One gate close to me was Chicago, the other one another SF flight. When I heard the SF announcement, I thought it was that flight and not mine, but then I saw people boarding at my gate. We took off at 3:30, with my laptop finally fully charged so that I could finish writing most of this on the plane.

I enjoyed the whole trip with great friends. I had expected to play mostly games that I knew already because it’s harder to learn new games, but learning them with other people at the con worked well, and it’s fun to try out new games. People were very friendly and supportive, and most of the time someone who knew the game explained it which helped. Playing new games is a different challenge than ones you know, and I have more of a chance to do well because focusing on one or two strategies is more likely to work when players haven’t grasped everything.

November 9, 2011

Gili, Eszter, Emily, Nadine

A short night because I'm leaving for the U.S. tomorrow morning - NY, Kansas City, Dallas and Northern California. Yay bgg.con!

Genoa

Emily 685, Gili 605, Eszter 565, Nadine 525

Emily collected buildings, and at the end paid Eszter 40 for hers, which let Eszter beat me. I was mostly focused on sorting my email before leaving and a work issue, and my son Eli came by. I did complete 4 cards and had three markers on locations. I knocked Gili off one at the end because I thought she was ahead of Emily. After catching on, Eszter exclaimed what a great game this is. We told her that she says that about every game, she agreed. She wanted to know how we find out about all these great games. Whereas Eli, who isn't into these games, commented that they all look the same.

October 26, 2011

Gili, Eitan, Emily, Eszter, Nadine

Nile
Nadine+, Gili, Emily, Eitan
First play for Emily and Eitan. I had by far the most cards, but had no Papyrus. I still won because everyone was missing at least one type. We like the game as a filler.

Amun Re
Emily 27,50; Nadine 9,41; Eszter 6,39; Eitan 18,36; Gili 12,33
First play for Eszter; Eitan and Emily had played once a very long time ago and didn't really remember much from then. Everyone enjoyed the game. Eitan started off doing well and had a lot of money, Emily had a strong first era and managed to keep the lead. Eszter could have taken one most pyramids instead of tying with me, but if she had then Eitan could have taken the other one from her. She got points for both, gaining the most points in the second era as she caught on to the game. Eszter said her kids would like the game, her son really likes Puerto Rico which she bought after learning it with us this summer, and she plays Settlers with her kids all the time.

October 18, 2011 - Sukkot Games Day

Nadine, Emily, Eitan, Gili, Jake, Eliezer, Meir, Rochelle, Daphna, Eszter

Rochelle is from Australia and comes regularly to our evening sessions.

Gili, Emily and Eitan are regulars.

Eliezer and Meir came from Beit Shemesh, Eliezer attends the group there, Meir is in yeshiva.

Eszter is originally from Hungary and came a few times during the summer.

Jake is a new oleh from Boston, he's been here 3 weeks.

Daphna is in ulpan, she made aliya 3 months ago from LA. She heard about us from Eitan's mom.

People arrived between 1:30 and 2 pm, and most stayed until 10:30. One additional person emailed for directions, which I didn't see until the evening, but he could have called because my number was in the announcement that he had. My new neighbors who just moved here from Efrat combined their sukkah with ours, so we had a lot of space. And it didn't rain, though it did get cold later in the day.

Carson City

Nadine 44, Emily 40, Gili 35, Eitan 33, Jake 25

We picked this as easier for a new gamer than Amun Re with the auctioning. Jake has played Settlers, but this was his first more complicated game, and it took him a while to understand all the different implications. Emily and Eitan were also pretty new to the game. There was a lot of fighting for everything, and a lot of duels. Last round Gili, Jake and Eitan had 10 cowboys. I managed to get the white cowboy only once, by passing early, for the third round, but that was enough to put me far enough ahead. I had the building discount card the first two rounds, which helped me because I had good buildings and income from the start, and third round the available buildings weren't good and people didn't buy many. This is the first time I understood how the surroundings work for buildings other than mines and ranches, I thought it was buildings and houses, but it's actually only houses.

Eitan robbed people's income several times, Gili fought him but I didn't, he took half of my 15 for a saloon twice. Everyone except me fought for the guns on the last round; I had used all my workers to get money third round so I went last and took the plot card. Gili played well but had bad luck in dice rolls, which Eitan had counted on. Overall people liked the game.

GoSu

Gili and Eitan played during a break.

Taj Mahal

Eitan 61, Eszter 42, Gili 36, Daphna, Jake
Jake left partway through but they continued playing. First play for Jake, Eszter and Daphna, who all enjoyed the game. Eitan said he understood and liked the strategy this time.

R-Eco

Eliezer and Meir played when they arrived and we were still playing Carson City.

We played at the end also:

Eliezer 15, Nadine 10, Emily 7, Meir -1

El Grande
Nadine 30, 76, 107

Eliezer 26, 63, 99

Meir 35, 79, 92

Emily 14, 50, 86

Rochelle 23, 61, 85

First play for Meir and Rochelle, Eliezer explained the game.

Eliezer picked this and was teaching it as we were finishing Carson City, so I joined, and then Emily also did. There was a bit of confusion as we tried to start El Grande, finish and count points for Carson City, and select restaurants and order food. We tried a brand new one, Daisy where Shakespeare used to be, with mixed opinions, and some people ordered from Village Green.

I wasn't ahead until the end and didn't think I'd win. Meir was ahead most of the game, with Eliezer catching up. Other people did things at the end which helped me, such as special scoring. My region was New Castille which I don't like because it's competitive and in the middle, but someone put the 4-0-0 scoreboard there which helped me because then everyone stayed out of the region. Until the very end, when two others went there from the castillo, matching my 3 pieces, and giving all of us 0.

The scoring round before, no one challenged Meir in Granada because we all thought everyone else would go there, there was duplication in where we went from the castillo. Rochelle caught on and played well, but hurt herself by making her Old Castille region too competitive with the 9 point scoreboard. People put large numbers of pieces into the castillo, and then crowded small regions such as Aragon and Seville.

Lo Ra
Emily 8, 19, 39

Nadine 10, 13, 28

Meir 0, 9, 26

Eliezer 5, 3, 22

Eliezer really liked my Jewish theming and pictures, he had played regular Ra. It was hard to get everything we needed. Eliezer took a large set at the end of one round, and Meir got the three items he wanted at the end of the game before the last auction tile.

Tangrams

Daphna got this recently so we played a few cards after everyone else left. The wooden pieces are nice.

October 05. 2011

Gili, Eitan, Emily, Nadine

R-Eco

Emily 18, Nadine 2, Eitan 1

We managed to end with positive scores. Emily had most of the chips. We played with random piles, the -2s showed up early. Everyone dumped.

Stone Age

Nadine 186, Eitan 136, Emily 131, Gili 120

The first time I've won this. I used the starvation strategy and it actually worked. Last time I tried it I decided too late, after I already was up 2 on the food track. I paid for food my first two turns and on the last one. I had no picture cards, but I had multipliers, and I rolled well. I ended with 9 people and 9 buildings. Eitan did well but took cards instead of buildings on the last round, so I got 3 buildings. Eitan and Emily competed with Gili for picture cards, and Gili had terrible luck with rolls. She had 6 picture cards, Eitan and Emily 3 each. We had a lot of tough choices with good card options.

Tribune

Eitan+, Nadine, Emily

We agreed this was our most boring time playing this game. It's less competitive with 3 players, more mechanical. I started with two factions first round, and didn't get another one until the last round. Eitan and Emily took a lot of factions, and with a lot of high cards. We played with 4 victory conditions. When Eitan won, I had 3 victory conditions, and was 3 laurels away from the fourth. Emily had one victory condition, but would have reached four next round. Emily went first on a round when two leaders were available together. Eitan forgot that he was getting the last laurel he needed from the purple faction. He had faction markers, laurels, tribune and favor of the gods. I had favor of the gods, legions and money.