Germantown 07/30/07

We had a light crowd, and played several good games. In attendance:

• David & Andrew Fair
• Leslie Barkley
  
• Eric Reinhold
• David & Martha Briggs
• Bill Trac
• Bill Salvatore
• Carol Loman
  
• Kevin Bealer

We started out by splitting into two groups. the first played Pegs & Jokers, and the second Zooloretto.

Pegs & Jokers is a game where players play cards to move pegs around a racetrack, hoping to be the first to get all their pegs back home. Players play in partnerships, and in this game, first-timer Carol and Bill T. partnered against newcomer Bill S. and Leslie. No notes on how it went, but Carol and Bill T. ended up victorious.

Meanwhile Andrew, Eric, and Dave played the new Spiel des Jahres winning Zooloretto. In this games players try to collect sets of animals to fill the pens in their zoo, while avoiding having too many animals in the barns. I have to say that I liked it much more here with 3 players than when I played it previously (with 5). Andrew was unstoppable, and scored 38 points, followed by Eric with 32, and me with 31.

Around this time, David & Martha and Kevin arrived, so we setup a 6-player game of Tanz Der Hornochsen, while a game of Tichu broke out at the other table.

Tanz der Hornochsen is the board game version of the 6 Nimmt! card game. It last a little (in this case, a lot) longer but it gives a few more decision points, and some new kinds of decisions. the game see-sawed back and forth, with players going up and down in large point swings, right up until we ended. The final scores (low scores are better) were: Kevin (38), Martha (40), Andrew (41), David B, (43) David F. (56), Eric (60).

Tichu is the card game o choice at GCOM-Damascus, but I think this might be the first time it was played at Germantown. A full game was not attempted, but they did play 4 hands, keeping the same partners from Pegs & Jokers. The score after 4 hands was Leslie & Bill S. 125 and Carol & Bill T. 375.

The final two games of the night, Ticket to Ride (with the USA 1910 expansion) and Caylus Magna Carta both had to be called before they ended when the store closed. We did not capture score from either game (TTR players: Bill S., Bill T., David B., Martha; CMC Players David F. Kevin, Leslie, Eric).

Next week will be the first Monday of the month, so we hope to see you there!