Wow! We had a full house tonight with 6 players! Aside from me there was Mike, Jeff, John, Josh and Josh's roommate, Rich. This will be a good opportunity to play some of those 6 player games with a full complement.

The first game to hit the table was one that plays best with 6, "Kohle, Kies & Knete". It's been a while since we played it, so I briefly went over the rules and then we dove right in. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell who is leading in this game because even though one player may be making quite a few deals they may be for low amounts of money, while a player that has made relatively few deals could be making some very lucrative ones. This was the case tonight, as it appeared that John and Jeff were involved in just about every deal and yet neither of them won. In fact, Mike, who apparently was picking and choosing his deals very carefully, ended up with the win with 41 million dollars. I came in a distant second with only 25 million, followed closely by Jeff with 23 million. John and Rich tied with 15 million each and Josh, who spent a good portion of the game without a Investor card came in last with 12 million dollars.

One of the funniest things to happen during the play of this game was when John attempted to steal a deal away from Josh by playing an "I'm the Boss" card. Josh replied with his own "I'm the Boss" card to which John hit him again with an "I'm the Boss" card. Josh smugly played another "I'm the Boss" card only to have John play the fifth "I'm the Boss" card to finally steal the deal. The game had to be suspended for a few minutes while everyone at the table composed themselves and wiped away tears of laughter (except Josh, of course.)

After KK&K finished up, I brought out a game that we've had for some time and have never played, "Shark". We've heard of the ambiguities in the rules and, let me tell you, they are more than just rumors. There were a number of holes and inconsistencies in the rules, but we arrived at several house rules that helped the game out. Even with this, however, we ran across some situations that just are not accounted for in the rules. This is too bad, too, because "Shark" could be a really slick, albeit fairly random, game with a good set of concise rules. Be that as it may, we sloughed our way through the rules and off we went. The Yellow stock took off to a strong start and pretty much remained that way throughout the rest of the game, with green and blue doing fairly well. The red stock, however, never seemed to get going. Another thing we found our while playing was that there just doesn't seem to be enough shares of stock. We had to come up with a rule that required everyone to turn in shares for larger denominations if possible. Everyone seemed pretty even during the game, until Rich performed a Take Over that decimated several people at once. This also set him up to handily win the game with $243,000, John took second with $116,000 barely squeaking past my $113,000. Mike had $99,000 to edge past Jeff's $98,000, and Josh had a mere $64,000.

After "Shark" it was time for some lighter fare. I decided to introduce everyone to "Take It Easy", a bingo-like game of lining up colored lines for points. I, of course, assumed position of Caller. Let me tell you, being the Caller is a thankless job. Even though the tiles are being drawn at random everyone blames you when the numbers they need aren't showing up. "I need another nine.", "How come you only called two fours?", and "Man, you've called too many ones. Don't call anymore!" are just some of the typical comments. The game is good lighthearted fun, however, and John proved to be the best at lining up his tiles with 184 points. I came in second with 151, Mike had 139, Rich 137, Josh 131, and Jeff got 127 points.

As it was now past Midnight, John and Mike left leaving four of us to find something fast and light to close the evening. Reiner Knizia's "High Society" fit the bill nicely. A few interesting things occurred during our play that can only be attributed to inexperience. We played the game 3 times and I won all 3. During the first game, Jeff had accumulated the most possessions, but, as he had the least amount of money, was automatically knocked out of the game. Rich and Josh only had multiplier cards and no possessions. I won with only a possession valued at 1 point. The second and third games were similar as I was the only one with any possessions winning the second game with a 4 and a x2 card. The third game found me with 20 points.

Another Game Night was over. "Kohle, Kies, & Knete" is a huge success every time we play (it needs to hit the table more often), "Shark" was an OK game that may be improved with some very definitive house rules, "Take It Easy" makes for a good closer, and "High Society" needs a few more plays before the jury makes a decision on it. Why is it that no matter what games we play, we still have a good time?

Five of us tonight for games: me, Bruce, Chris, John, and someone new to our group Jeff B. Jeff had a little trouble with my directions to my house and called from a phone booth. So, while we were waiting for him to arrive we searched about for a quick 4 player game.

I jumped on this opportunity to introduce the group to an action game I fell in love with while at Gulf Games, "Piratenbillard". This game is a large wooden table made up of squares, 10 on a side. The squares, however, are formed by wooden dividers approximately an inch in depth. This gives the game the appearance of a large egg crate (or maybe a shadowbox would be a better description.) The bottom of this "box" is not solid. Instead, it is a piece of cloth stretched tightly from edge to edge. The entire thing sits on legs about 12 inches in length. Each player then gets a wooden mallet and 8 wooden balls that they place at their edge of the table, one ball to a hole, in their "home row". The object of this game is to hit the balls from underneath (through the cloth) making them pop up and move to another hole. Every ball that you can get into the home row directly opposite you is worth 4 points. Every time you hit your ball into a hole containing an opponent's ball you capture it, removing it from the table, and score 2 points.

It may sound simple, but getting those little wooden balls to go where you want them to go can be frustrating. Chris got the hang of it right away and was actually pretty accurate with his aim, capturing several balls in the course of the game. He took the win with 12 points. Bruce had a much more difficult time and couldn't seem to get those balls to even stay on the table. He ended up with only 2 points. John and I were in the middle with 4 and 8 points respectively.

By now, Jeff had arrived and I sat out a round to give him the chance to play "Piratenbillard". Chris was doing well again, but this time things must have clicked for John as he walked away with the win with 14 points. Chris was next with 10 points. Bruce showed signs of improvement scoring 8 points. Jeff's first outing earned him a respectable 6 points.

With everyone there finally, "Piratenbillard" was put away and out came "Medici". We all felt this light, Reiner Knizia bidding game would be a great way to start the evening. I grabbed the gold in the first round and jumped to a big lead after the first round by having the most valuable cargo. Chris worked steadily at the Grain cards and managed to get into the bonus points by the end of the second round. John and Bruce, though, spread themselves out nicely and were able to tie for the win after the third round with 114 points each. I managed to edge past Chris with 89 points to his 81 and Jeff only managed 67 points in his first "Medici" outing.

We put "Medici" away and brought out another of Reiner's great games, "Durch die Wüste". I briefly reviewed the rules (and even remembered that with 5 players we each only get 4 colors!) and off we went. Chris seemed determined to shut me out of every Oasis I tried to reach, but I did manage to get to a few. Bruce was able to enclose a couple areas pretty early on as did Jeff. Just before the game ended I noticed that the white camels were all tied at 6, so I took the opportunity to play two more white ones to my caravan. The game ended on the very next play. John racked up 60 points and the win with one long caravan. Chris and I tied for second with 54 points each (he had 1 long caravan and I had two). Bruce ended up with 48 points (and 1 long caravan also) and Jeff had 39 points.

The next game to come out was one I've been hearing about for years, "Volle Hütte". I finally got a copy several weeks ago and was anxious to give it a go. It's a game about building up pubs (using "Enhancement Tiles") and filling them up with customers. Each player owns one pub, so, of course, you need to lure customers away from other players' pubs and into your own via "Customer Cards". Jeff went for a pool hall and put 3 pool tables into his pub, I went for tables on the terrace early and grabbed a couple customers early on because of them. Everybody else was pretty well diversified with bars, dance floors, tables and such (although I never did get a dance floor!) I was sitting pretty heavy in big paying customers when Chris managed to lure them out of my pub. John then promptly took them from Chris. Then something happened that slightly soured the game. All the "Enhancement Tiles" were gone and the only "Customer Cards" displayed were for foosball tables. Well, all the foosball tables were full, so those cards couldn't be chosen. As a result everyone was forced to take a "Tip Card". There are a very limited number of these and once they are gone the game ends. So, the next three players each took a "Tip Card" and the game ended. The game ended with John taking the title of "Pub King" with 980 points. I came in second with 880, Chris had 830, Bruce 790 and Jeff had 710.

The night was nearly over. There was time for one quick game. What would it be? "Liar's Dice"! This was pretty much standard fare. Bruce was the first one to go out, followed closely by John. Jeff went out with a loss of three dice at once. That left Chris and I for the showdown. We were each down to 2 dice and Chris set the bid at two 2s. I had one 2 so I set it to three 2s. Chris called me on it. It turns out he didn't have any 2s to begin with. What a dirty trick!

Game Night was officially over. "Piratenbillard" was a big hit and I'm sure it will be coming out quite a bit more, "Medici" is always a good game and everyone enjoys it, it's been a while since we've played "Durch die Wüste" and it was great to play it again, "Volle Hütte", in spite of the endgame problem, was a big hit, I'm sure a house rule or two can fix the problem that we experienced, and "Liar's Dice" just never gets old. I've decided, however, that I'm never trusting Chris again!

Four people made it to the Kitchen Table this week: Chris, Dave, Bruce and, of course, me. Everyone was pretty much on time so we started the games right off the bat.

The first game on the table was "Hornochsen". I had just gotten this game from Gulf Games and was anxious to give it a go. "Take 6" is a favorite among our game group and, since at least the theme of "Hornochsen" is similar, I thought the group might like it. There are a few things that differentiate "Hornochsen" from "Take 6" (besides gameplay); the tableau is set up in a circle, there are positive and negative point cards, and simultaneous play is missing. Also, each player has two "special" cards, one is worth +5 points and the other multiplies your accrued points (positive or negative) by 2. These are cumulative too, so if you get two "x2" cards your score is quadrupled.

It quickly became apparent that everyone was out to dump the negative cards from their hands and some of the stacks that were on the table were completely red (negative). This made things quite difficult. It seemed that anything that could be picked up would result in a negative score. Indeed, that ended up being the case. To top it off, many of us were dumping our "x2" cards on these negative stacks. I had a positive score until the last stack I took which was worth -15 points by itself! Anyway, when the final scores were tallied Dave won with the only positive score: 4 points. Chris and I tied at -4 each and Bruce ended up with -10.

Enough of that! Time for one of our "big" games of the night. I didn't give anyone a choice as I walked over to the table and plopped down "Chinatown". I bought this game several months ago and never seemed to find the right time to play it. After the reading of the rules, we were off. We had a bit of a slow start as we weren't quite sure how to proceed with the trading phase. I mean, we knew the rules, but when its your first time playing how do you know if you're making a good deal or not? It didn't take long, however for things to get into full swing. We even had several three way deals hitting the table: "I'll give you this business, if you can give me this business from that player." What great fun! Our group has always been one to enjoy wheeling and dealing, so this game really hit the mark. I managed to land a 6 tile business after a deal with Bruce. Dave had a 4 tile business pretty early on, and Chris was building a couple 3 tile businesses. Bruce also landed a 5 tile and a 4 tile business by striking deals with both Chris and me. By the end of the 6th and final round, I was feeling pretty cocky and fairly certain that I had the game in the bag. I should have known better! Dave counted his money and eked me out. So, we were sure Dave won. Chris, however, in true Chris fashion, counted his money out nice and slow. The result? Chris won with $112,000! Dave came in second with $109,000, I was third with $99,00 and lastly, Bruce had $84,000. What a surprise!

"Chinatown" didn't take as long as we thought, so we opted to play another "big" game instead of delving into our usual fillers. This time it was "Torres". "Manhattan" has always been a favorite of Chris' and I was anxious to show him this one. I suppose it doesn't really share all that much with "Manhattan", but it helped me talk him into yet another new game. I've played this game on several other occasions, but this one was very different. Many of our castles got hemmed in fairly early and were unable to expand outward. This also had the side effect of making it nearly impossible to move a knight to a higher level since all the towers were continually occupied. Also, in a very interesting move, Bruce placed the King, for the third round, in such a way that no one (including himself) was able to get the King's Bonus. It must have been the right thing to do, because Bruce went from being in last place before the start of the third round to winning the game, beating me by a single point. Bruce ended up with 210 points, I had 209, Dave 171, and finally Chris with 150. This is the largest difference I have ever seen in this game. The difference between first and fourth place is usually less than 20 points. I told you it was a very different session.

Well, after only three games, it was time to call it a night. "Hornochsen" was fun, but I don't think it will replace "Take 6" as our group's favorite filler, I can tell already that "Chinatown" will be getting several repeat playings, and "Torres" continues to be a favorite of mine and appeared to go over well with the group. Chris even said he liked it after getting trounced. Will wonders never cease!

We almost had four players tonight, but, because the Indians were in the playoffs, Chris backed out so he could watch the game. That left three of us: me, Dave, and John.

I brought out a new game I just bought and was anxious to play, "Torres". We decided to play the variant where a player can draw three action cards and return two to his deck. I explained the rules to John and Dave and the game was underway. I jumped out to an early lead by building out on a particular castle rather than up. As my last play of the first round I managed to build up just enough to capitalize on the multiplier. John was spreading out across the board with knights as was Dave. I wasn't sure about how well that strategy would work, so I continued to stay localized. Eventually, their strategy must have paid off, however, as they both managed to pass me on the scoring track. We all managed to receive the King's bonus in every round, and judging from how close the final scores were, it was critical that we did. After the final scores were calculated John took the win with 226 points. Dave came in second with 222 and I was last with 215. We were all pretty amazed that the scores were that close. The game could have belonged to anyone at anytime; a very nice feature.

Since I got to play a new game of mine, John brought out our second game of the night. He just bought "Settlers of Catan: Seafarers" and, likewise, wanted to give it a go. I was all for it, because I enjoy "Settlers of Catan" and wanted to see just how different "Seafarers" was. John chose a three player scenario and assumed the duty of explaining the rules. It had been a while since Dave had played "Settlers of Catan" so he was a little rusty in the early stages of the game, but midway through everything clicked for him. I managed to snag the Longest Road honors fairly early but couldn't get any Ore to upgrade my cities if my life depended on it. We all kept moving the Robber between a Timber hex that Dave and I shared and a Wheat hex that John was on. John was able to collect 3 Knights to capture the Largest Army points while Dave built at a steady pace and I floundered. John also discovered 2 new islands to collect points and became an unstoppable juggernaut. When John finally won with 12 points he left Dave behind with 9 and me with a scant 6 points.

These two "big" games took up a good portion of time, leaving us with just enough time for a quick closer. We chose "For Sale" and got in two games of it. I won the first game with $76 million to Dave's $65 million and John's $53 million. The second game, however, caused me to tumble from my lofty perch when John won with $73 million. Dave came in second with $65 million (again) and I had a lowly $46 million.

We only were able to fit 3 games in tonight (4 if you count "For Sale" twice), but had a great time. "Torres" is a good solid game that will, no doubt, see many repeated playings, I really enjoyed "Settlers of Catan:Seafarers" and look forward to playing some of the other scenarios in it and "For Sale" is still an excellent closer/opener because of it's quick playing time, lack of complexity, and agonizing decisions. I'm sure we will see it on the Kitchen Table many more times.

There was three of us tonight, myself, John, and Bruce. Bruce was running a little late, so John and I started up a game of "Lost Cities".

I've noticed experience plays a big part of the scores in this game. First time players almost always score negative points as they try to get their hands into too many adventures. This time John and I both had positive scores, but again only played one hand since Bruce showed up and we were anxious to play something with three players. John gave me a good drubbing as the final "Lost Cities" scores were John 94 and me with 44.

When Bruce showed up John requested a game that he has never played and has been wanting to, "Lowenherz". I quickly agreed since this game is firmly entrenched in my top 10. Bruce had also never played so, after the mandatory rules reading and explanation, we began a game. I don't find the advanced rules to be too difficult to grasp and, since I think they make for a better game, those are the ones I explained. John was following a good strategy of getting walls early and picking up political cards as they showed up. I also tried to grab walls early on, but the majority seemed to fall John's way. Bruce got off to a slow start and, in this game, that can be a daunting deficit to overcome. John was showing no mercy as he relentlessly marched across the board with his kingdoms, devouring everything in his path. I quickly played an alliance card to protect my largest kingdom that shared a common border with John. One thing I had going for me was a glut of gold, which allowed me to purchase cards away from others that were bidding for what I wanted. John, however, caught onto this and would rather duell than reach an agreement. Bruce, in the meantime, was developing a couple of smaller kingdoms on his side of the board. They never did quite flourish into the monsters John was developing. When the King died, John walked away with 73 points and the win. I came in second with 61 points and Bruce was a distant third with only 32 points.

It was getting late, so, for a quick closer, I introduced Bruce and John to a new aquisition for me, "For Sale". Even though neither one had played it before, I was soundly defeated by both. John managed a whopping $76 million, Bruce had $56 million, and I could only sell an igloo and a tree house for $44 million.

So, we fold up the Kitchen Table once again. We still can't seem to get 3 hands of "Lost Cities" in, but the game is growing on me with each playing, "Lowenherz" still maintains it's lofty perch of one of the best games I've played, and I can see why "For Sale" is such a popular openner/closer in so many gaming circles; it is built around a very simple, yet elegant bidding system. I thoroughly enjoy it.

We had 5 people scheduled to show up tonight: me (of course), Dave, John, Josh, and some new blood, Ron from RC Hobbies.

Ron and Josh were running a little late and I had to run out on an errand so Dave and John started a game of "Lost Cities". This was Dave's first time playing so John taught him the ropes. I got back from my running around just as they were finishing up their first hand, so they decided to stop. I'm beginning to understand why the rules suggest three hands of this game. It seems to be the only way to even things out. While I'm not sure what the final score was of this one hand I do know that John won since Dave's score was negative; something that seems to happen a lot to first time players.

Ron showed up now, so we thought we'd delve into something quick until Josh dropped in. "Mamma Mia" was the game of choice. Not much to report here other than this didn't seem to be my night to deliver pizzas. John managed to fill 6 orders, Ron came in second with 5, Dave had 4 and I finished with a mere 3 orders filled. I could probably have done better if I would have tossed orders in the stack at random. Shows you what can happen when I try to think too much.

Just as "Mamma Mia" was finishing up, Josh arrived. Everyone was still in the mood for light games, so "Liar's Dice" hit the table. I know Josh likes this game, although I'm not sure why. He usually doesn't fare well in it. I guess that's a good thing meaning he's just a bad liar. He went out in two rounds during this game when he lost 4 dice in the second round. Dave followed closely in Josh's footsteps being knocked out in round 3. Ron was the next to go and John was down to 1 die. I ended up with the victory when I out-lied John and finished up with my full contingent of 5 dice. Not bad.

While everyone was in the quick and light game mood, I brought out a quirky game that I really enjoy, "Klunker". This game, like many of Uwe Rosenburg's designs, take a little while to get used to. Nonetheless, I always have a good time playing it. I'm not sure how John felt about it as he was rarely able to get more than one dollar in his bank. Many gold teeth, tongue bobs, and monocles later, Dave won handily with 14 dollars. I came in second with 10 followed by Ron with 8. Josh and John brought up the rear with 5 and 4 dollars respectively.

It was now time for our "big" game of the evening, "Showmanager". This game is still pretty light fare, but requires a little more planning and strategy than the other games we had played tonight. I managed to get the first production on the board with a very nice "King Lear". I was feeling pretty cocky about it, so it went to New York. Well, that ended up being my undoing as I had to borrow money from it to float my other productions and everyone seemed to be putting on better "King Lears". Ron seemed to be scarfing up all the "9"s that came up, even putting on a "Queenie" with all "9"s. Josh was managing some great musicals also, but in the end fell a little short. The final scores were: Ron 51, Josh 49, John 46, Craig 29 and Dave had only 19. I guess we won't be going to any of his Broadway plays!

The hour was late, so what else can we play but "Take 6", our standard closer. This time I barely squeaked a win past John with 28 points to his 29. Ron was next with 34, then Josh with 55. Dave busted the magic number at 75 points.

Another Game Night is over and tonight was a nice light one. One of these days we will get in 3 rounds of "Lost Cities" and see if the scores even out, "Mamma Mia" still hurts my brain but I enjoy it nonetheless, "Liar's Dice" can't seem to lose it's appeal (or it's hold on "Noisiest Game"), I enjoy "Klunker" more and more with each playing...this needs to hit the table more often, "Showmanager" is a well thought out game, light enough but not overly so, and, of course, there's "Take 6"...what else!

Four gamers showed up for this week's get together around the Kitchen Table: John, Bruce, Chris and me (of course). So, we thought we'd start out with a light four player game: "Drunter & Druber".

The game proceeded fairly normal at first except that no one was building roads. We had walls and rivers going everywhere before the first road tile even hit the board. Anyway, buildings were being crushed, outhouses were being covered and all the normal bluffing was going on. We had all pegged Chris to have the yellow buildings pretty early on and he was quickly down to only his "1" building showing. Bruce was a little harder to figure out, but some lucky tiles took him out of the running also. John and I were the only ones that had a shot at victory, and in fact, I was leading when one wall was stopped, and the other wall and the road were nowhere near affecting me. It was at this point that it became obvious who owned which colors. A quick turn of the river took out Chris' last building and John managed to avoid a disaster on his turn by changing the direction of the wall 90 degrees. I didn't have enough river tiles to move the river away from a building of mine that was being threatened. As luck would have it, that is about all John had left. He manipulated the river to cover my "1" orange building giving us a tie at 3 points each. Bruce managed to hold on with 1 point and Chris was nowhere to be seen.

Next, we brought out a game that I've been wanting to show Chris for some time. Somehow he managed to miss Game Night on all of our previous playings of "Medici" and I knew it would be a game he would enjoy. After the first round of trading things were pretty even with John taking a lead in furs and me with spice. Chris and I were tied with cloth and Bruce was leading the grain commodity. The second round saw John jump way ahead in furs and taking a lead in dye. This proved to be too much for the rest of us when he snagged the topmost position of furs and maintain a lead in dye in the final round. John ended up being the only one to take the top of a pyramid in any commodity giving him the win with 150 points. I came in second with 133 points. Chris was third with 118 and Bruce, who just couldn't seem to get ahead, ended up with 93 points.

John suggested the next game, one that he had never played, "Roborally". This hadn't hit the table in a long time, so we all readily agreed. It seemed unbelievable to us that John had never played because this used to be a staple game for us. I guess that was before John joined us. I told you it was a long time. Anyway, we decided on a simple two board, three flag setup because we didn't want anything too heavy. The game couldn't have started out any worse for me. I was getting shot continuously as I tried to get off the starting point forcing me to perform an early shutdown. It didn't matter much as I ended up dying anyway. Chris stayed behind to get some options for his robot and ended up with the Scrambler and the Tractor Beam. Bruce moved to another option point and collected the Mechanical Arm and the Rear Firing Laser. I was busy just trying to stay alive and John, in the meantime, drove off the edge of the board with a poorly designed program. John and Bruce continued to pummel me with lasers as Chris was on his way to the checkpoints. John actually started heading toward the wrong checkpoint when someone asked him where he was going. He realized his mistake and had to double back to catch up with Chris. Chris then hit Bruce with the Scrambler, but ended up doing minimal damage as Bruce just moved ineffectually. When Chris finally touched the last checkpoint he was only 1 turn ahead of John. Bruce was a couple turns behind that and I had not only died twice, but never touched a single checkpoint.

By now it was getting a little late, so we opted for our standard closer, "Take 6". The game went rather quickly, with the only unusual thing being that the table had filled up completely at one point; every row had 5 cards in it. I had never seen that before. In the end I won with 45 points, Chris and Bruce were neck and neck with 54 and 55 points respectively and John broke the bank at 73 points.

So Game Night closes once again. "Drunter & Druber" makes a great light opener/closer although it seems to generate a lot of ties; still a very good game, "Medici" is one of the best bidding games available, and I'm glad Chris finally got to play it, it was good seeing "Roborally" on the Kitchen Table again, it may not be the greatest game around, but we always seem to have fun playing it, and I may need to buy another "Take 6" deck because we've played it enough that the deck is wearing out. You gotta love that!

Another week with only four gamers; John, Bruce, Mike and me. So, once again, we will structure Game Night around one of our rarely played 4 player games. But first...

John was the first to show up, so we thought we'd start something while we were waiting. I brought out the newly arrived "Lost Cities". I figured we could at least get one hand in before Bruce and Mike showed up. It took all of about 2 minutes to explain the rules to this simple Reiner Knizia game. John started off by playing Investment cards in both White and Red. I was a bit dismayed at this because I had high cards in both, but also had a good hand of Yellow. As I started to build up Yellow I also managed to draw a lot of Green, which was good because John was not playing any Green at all. When the hand finally finished up I had played a good supply of Yellow and Blue cards and 7 Green cards, including two Investments. John was strong in both Red and White and had played some Blue. The tally after one hand gave me 51 points and John a dismal -6.

Bruce had walked in toward the end of the game, so I suggested he and John play while we waited for Mike as I had some fatherly duties to tend to anyway. Since I was in and out for most of the game I am unable to report the details. However, I did get to see the final scores after 1 hand: John 11, Bruce -13. I think some repeated playings of this game will probably garner some better scores.

Mike was at the table at this point, so we needed to decide on a 4-player game. Looking at the stack of games sitting nearby this year's Spiel des Jahre, "Tikal", jumped right out. I had heard that the auction version of this game is the best way to play, so those were the only rules I explained. Once all that was out of the way, we were off and running (exploring?). John and Bruce started collecting treasures early while Mike and I went for the temples.

Something that I found interesting during this game was that when the first volcano appeared everyone avoided picking it up and bid for the other hexes. Then, on their turn, they would set themselves up in a good scoring position. When Mike finally picked up the volcano everyone was ready for it. Of course, we had forgotten that we would each get 10 action points to use before we scored anyway, so avoiding the volcano was probably a moot point. I had placed a guardian early on a 7 point temple losing 4 workers in the process. Mike also place a couple guardians and lost some workers. Toward the end of the game Mike pointed out how he and I were out of workers and Bruce and John still had plenty in reserve. This is something we'll have to watch a little more closely in future games.

So, two hours and forty-five minutes later, we finished up our game. I've heard about people overanalyzing their turns in this game, but I didn't feel this was happening here and it still took us a long time to play. John agreed that he didn't think anyone was overanalyzing, rather our group just plays slower than others. I guess I would have to agree with him. Most of our games seem to go over the limit printed on the boxes. I guess as long as we are all compatible it shouldn't matter. Still, almost three hours? Wow!

The final scores in "Tikal" ended up with John at 107 points, Bruce at 94, I had 89 and Mike had 64. We all enjoyed it in spite of its length.

It was now just after Midnight and Mike said he could stay for one more game if it was quick. Eyeing the games on the table, someone came up with "Family Business". This was a good choice because it's been a very long time since this has hit the Kitchen Table. Bruce was the only one that had never played it before so we knew he was in for a treat. Things were progressing fairly evenly with contracts being spread out until John decided to play the "Vendetta". The three of us that lost our mobsters then declared open season on John's gang. Contracts were flying his way, but he managed to either fend them off or turn them around. That's when we noticed that Bruce was sitting there pretty much unscathed. Alas, it was too late. A turn came around that had Mike's and my last mobsters on the wall. Before Mike's turn his last mobster died. It was then my turn and, before I could play a card, my last mobster died. That left John and Bruce to duke it out. John was worn down to just a few mobsters and Bruce still had five left. In the end John was unable to fend off Bruce's contract because he had no defense in his hand. Bruce was the winner in his first "Family Business" outing.

It was time to pack up and go home. I'm hoping to play a full game of "Lost Cities" in the future as I think it shows a great deal of promise, we all want to give "Tikal" another shot to see if we can get a game down to 2 hours, and "Family Business" is still a great game that I hope we'll see more of in the near future.

Only four players committed to making it to Game Night this week: Chris, Bruce, Mike and, of course, me. This would present us with an opportunity to play one of the many four player games that have been sitting on our shelf for a while. But first, an opener...

I've heard several people give the Reiner Knizia game "Money" a bad rap, but after reading the rules I was intrigued so I picked up a copy. I brought it out as this week's opening game, since it sounded like a fast, light card game. If you haven't seen it, the cards are beautiful. They look like miniature representations of real currency from around the world. The object is to collect sets of currency. If you collect enough currency from a particular country you avoid penalty points. In addition, certain values of currency are available in triples. If you collect these you get bonus points. Now, mind you, when I explained the rules to everyone sitting around the table I did a much more thorough job than this. I wanted to make a point of saying this because there was a bit of confusion in the initial hand, specifically with Mike. Bruce and Chris understood the rules, but, somehow Mike misunderstood. So at the end of the first hand Bruce, Chris and I were laying our hands out and Mike was just looking at them. When one of us asked him what he had he simply stated that something wasn't right. He laid his hand out on the table and it contained exactly one "30" from each and every currency. The room grew silent.

OK. It's not the first time someone has completely missed the object of a new game. We picked up the cards and tried again. This time it was much more difficult getting the cards that we needed to complete our collections. It made a difference having one of us not trying to collect sets. Well, Mike understood the rules this time. Boy, did he ever! When we laid out our (new) first hand Mike had racked up a phenomenal 820 points! Chris had a respectable 570 and Bruce and I tied at 510. The second hand had Chris at 560, Mike and I just behind him with 550 and Bruce with 510. The third and final hand would require some stellar numbers to catch up with Mike. We just couldn't do it. I managed 530 point, Mike had 500, Bruce 410 and Chris choked and only pulled in 270 points. So, after three hands the score was Mike with 1870, me with 1590, Bruce with 1430 and Chris with 1400.

We all enjoyed this game very much. I'm glad I decided to pick it up in spite of some of the bad press its been getting. In fact, Mike asked me to pick up a copy of it for him next time I placed an order (which seems to be weekly anymore!)

It was time for something with a little more "meat" to it. Our choice was another Knizia game, "Samurai". Mike bought this game months ago and its been sitting on the shelf waiting for a Game Night with only four players (we like to include everyone that shows up in the same game). What a great game this is. It's a shame we let it sit so long. Like any Knizia game, the rules are very easy to grasp and yet the strategies can be very deep. It certainly is a quiet game with everyone studying the board between moves. I was planning the "killer" move when Mike grabbed the last Buddha and ended the game. Other than Mike, we had all forgotten about the rule that said that once the last piece of a particular type was captured the game ended. Needless to say, when Mike announced the game was over, groans erupted all around the table. It only got worse when we found out that Mike also won. He had captured the most High Helmets and Rice Paddies giving him an automatic win. The final scores were (H=High Helmets, R=Rice Paddies, B=Buddhas) Mike 5H 4R 1B, Bruce 1R 8B, Chris 3H 3R 2B, and me 2H 2R 2B.

Chris told us ahead of time that he was going to make it an early night. So we said our good-byes and Bruce, Mike and I brought out one more new game, "Verrater". I bought this one about a month ago and have been anxious to try it ever since. It's a very interesting game. It's actually a card game but it plays more like a boardgame. I started off strong, but fell apart toward the end. Bruce was rather erratic, scoring high on a few turns and low on most others. Mike, however, was consistent throughout the game. As usual, this strategy always pays off. The very last turn, Mike had the choice of the first action card. I either needed to change my allegiance with the Verrater (Traitor) card or change one of my existing Farms to and Estate with the Baumeister (Architect) card. Mike chose his card and passed the deck to me and... neither card I needed was in the deck! I later found out that Mike had chosen the Baumeister card and the Verrater card was the one that was discarded at the start of the round. What rotten luck! This put the final scores at 40 for Mike, 33 for me and 32 for Bruce.

Game Night was now officially over. Mike was victorious in every game played tonight (once he understood the rules, that is!) "Money" was a very enjoyable filler that I'm sure we will be playing again, "Samurai" was a terrific game that I can't wait to play again, and "Verrater" was a fun game, but one I will reserve judgement on until I play it a few more times.

We are expecting 5 people tonight: regulars Dave, Chris, John and myself. Tonight Chris P. will be joining us again after a slight absence.

While we were waiting for Dave and Chris to show up I decided to share the latest "craze" with John and Chris P. Mainly "Loopin' Louie". I've played this game numerous times with my kids and have always enjoyed it, but it seems that a lot of adults have been playing this lately, so I thought I may as well try it with these guys and see what the big deal is. Well, we had fun bumping Louie around and knocking each others chickens off, but all in all, it just wasn't enough to hold our interest. Maybe you have to be in the right frame of mind.

We were still waiting when we tired of "Loopin' Louie" so I broke out "Apples to Apples" by Out of the Box Publishing. This is a game that we could quit at anytime. That way when Dave and Chris showed up we could start something else. We needed a fourth player so I went and roped my daughter, Cassie, into playing. It was the first time for all of us at this game, but the rules are very elementary. Basically, everyone has a hand of cards with nouns on them or "Red Apples". One person, the Judge, draws an adjective card or "Green Apples" and plays it face up on the table. Everyone quickly puts one or two cards from their hand face down on the table. The Judge then picks up these cards shuffles them and lays them face up on the table. He then gets to vote for the one that he feels best fits the adjective played. Sometimes the combinations can be quite goofy, but the opinion of the Judge is final. Then whoever played that Red Apple card collects the Green Apple card. With four players, the first player to get 8 cards wins.

Even though this is really a "party" type game, and we usually don't play these kinds of games on Game Night, we had a blast. The combinations that get played often break the table up into fits of laughter. The game was so enjoyable that John decided on the spot that he was going to buy a copy himself. Chris P. ended up winning by being the first to collect 8 cards. Cassie and I tied with 7 each and John snagged 6. This was just a lot of fun.

Just as we were finishing "Apples to Apples" Chris and Dave showed up. True to his word, Dave declared that we were going to play "Union Pacific". We played it for the first time last Game Night, and at that time Dave said that he wanted to play it again the next time we got together. This time around the game was still a learning experience for us. Everyone began jumping on Union Pacific stock very early. This, as it turns out, is not necessarily a good thing. Obviously by getting Union Pacific stock the rest of your portfolio will suffer. We all found out just how badly it can suffer. In fact, Dave ended up having the most UP stock at the table (6 shares) and ended up only being invested in 2 other companies for the first 2 dividend payoffs. This actually put him in a hole that he was never able to quite dig his way out of. Chris P., on the other hand, was doing very well early on. He looked like the one to beat, but toward the end of the game he ended up missing out on a few dividend payments as others started investing in the same companies he did. Things started spiraling downward for him after the third dividend card was drawn. The fourth and final dividend card ended up being buried very deep in the deck resulting in much higher scores than the first time we played. John took the game with $126 million followed by Chris C. with $105 million. I just eked past Chris P. with $98 million to his $97 million and Dave trailed the pack with $89 million, a score that would have won in our first outing of the game two weeks ago.

Chris P. had to leave, so that left four of us. The request was for something light and short. That sounded like "Apples to Apples" to me. We ended the night with three more games of this terrific filler. The final scores for the three games (in order) were John 8,6,8; Craig 4,8,3; Dave 4,5,7; and Chris 5,3,6. Half the fun this time around was watching Chris' indignation at not having his Red Apple cards chosen.

So, the final touches are put on another Game Night. "Loopin' Louie" didn't generate the excitement I've been reading about in some circles, "Apples to Apples" is not only a good opener and closer, but one that my whole family will enjoy, and "Union Pacific" shows that there really is more strategy to it than appears on the surface. It's my hope that we will be playing this one quite a bit more.

This week we were joined by yet another person we met through the Internet, Jeff. Jeff and John (our first Internet contact) have been emailing each other for a while and this week Jeff was able to grab a spot at the Kitchen Table. He brought with him what appeared to be every single "Siedler von Catan" game ever made, including the card game and expansions. We were unable to get to any of them tonight, but I'm sure we will be having a "Catan" night in the near future.

Joining Jeff and I at the Table were Dave, Bruce and John. John pointed out that the "Internet People" outnumbered the "Non-Internet People" tonight, an observation that did not escape neither Dave nor I. So, with five around the Table we had many, many options. I decided to pull out one of my new favorites "Klunker" by a designer I am rapidly growing very fond of, Uwe Rosenberg.

"Klunker" is a wonderful card game about buying, collecting, and selling jewelry. It also "suffers" from what I view as a trademark of Rosenberg's games. While I wouldn't classify it as having a steep learning curve, it definitely takes 2 or 3 plays to fully understand the intricacies of the strategy. It's not a particularly difficult game as far as rules go, but the game plan just takes a little while to grasp. I find this to be true of some of his other games as well (e.g. "Schnappchen Jadg", "Bohnanza").

As if to prove me wrong, however, I did not win tonight's game even though I was the only one to play before. Tonight the "New Guy", Jeff, managed to sell enough jewelry to net himself $12 to my $11. John then followed me with $10, Bruce with $9 and Dave with $6.

Next to hit the table was another new game, fresh out of the shrinkwrap, Alan Moon's "Union Pacific". I've read that this game is basically a remake of Alan's popular game "Airlines" with a theme change and some rule tweaks. I've never played "Airlines" but let me tell you right now, "Union Pacific" is great! If you enjoy financial based games then I strongly suggest picking this one up immediately. It presents some wonderful dilemmas on each and every turn: should you expand an existing railroad in order to increase the value of it's stock or should you invest in a company so that when one of the Dividend Cards comes up (they're buried in the deck somewhere) you can collect your shareholder's bonus?

The final tally had Jeff and John tied at $84 million, I had $80 million, Bruce $72 million, and Dave $62 million. The game was a big hit. So much so that Dave requested we play it again at our next meeting.

Jeff had to get going at this point, so the rest of us opted for a light four player game. "Auf Heller und Pfennig" seemed to fit the bill. None of us had ever played it so we were all on equal footing. During the play of it, it seemed like I was getting screwed at every turn. Any time I put down a Market Stall someone would put a negative score tile in that row or column. To my surprise, however, I managed to squeak into second place with 175 points. This paled in comparison to John's 266 point though. Dave was close behind me with 173 and Bruce finished last with 158.

The night was coming to an end and Bruce announced that he had to leave. The three of us that remained broke out the "Take 6" deck. After a mere three hands John won with only 39 bullheads. Dave had 54 and I lost with a whopping 84 bullheads, 36 of which came in the last hand!

So the curtain falls on another Game Night. We are going to have to play "Klunker" again to get past the learning curve (except Jeff), at Dave's request we will play "Union Pacific" again, "Auf Heller und Pfennig" is a fun, light game, even if it does have a pasted on theme and, once again, "Take 6" is the consummate closer. We hope to see Jeff again at future Game Night's even if he did manage to come in first at both games he played. He obviously is unaware of the rule about not winning on your first night at the Kitchen Table!

Five people tonight: me, Chris, Dave, John and Mike. With 5 of us tonight I thought we'd play some games specifically made for 5 (there are so many great 5 player games!!)

While we were waiting for Mike to show up, I decided to whet everyone's appetite with a quick hand of "Mystery Rummy Case #1: Jack the Ripper". We knew Mike was coming any minute, so we agreed to just one hand. I quickly explained the rules, then had to explain some card fundamentals to Chris like "meld" and "trump" and such. Even though there really is no trump to speak of in Mystery Rummy we thought we explain it to him anyway (he's just not a card player). The table had built up to 3 victims and a variety of Evidence meld when Dave played the "Commissioner Resigns" card forcing any player holding onto a victim to play it. With that, the two final victims came out. As soon as the fifth victim hit the table I played my "Ripper Escapes" card and ended the hand. Dave started complaining that he didn't know about that card, otherwise he wouldn't have played it. I would have believed him (I'm notorious for forgetting "crucial" rules in my quick explanations), except that both Chris and John knew about it, so I must have explained it. It didn't really matter anyway as we weren't keeping score. I just wanted to show them the game, besides that, Mike had shown up while we were playing, so we wanted to get him involved in a game.

The first game to hit the table was Durch die Wuste. This game seemed to be fairly well balanced with everyone building up caravans of different colors. It seemed almost "friendly". Occasionally someone would block someone else from an Oasis or spoil their plans for enclosing an area, but overall there wasn't very much conflict. In the end enclosing areas made the difference. Chris had captured a large area and ended the game with 67 points. John, who captured an area in the middle of the board, was next with 59 points. I had taken two smaller areas to just miss second place with 57 points. Dave had only managed to capture one small area to take 39 points, and Mike was foiled at the last minute and failed to enclose an area which resulted in his only gaining 37 points.

At this point I decided to play "game dictator" and started setting up "El Grande" without asking. It's been a while since we've played it, so I was quite anxious to give it another go. In retrospect, I should have picked something else! John and Chris got off to a quick start and began moving along the scoring track immediately. Dave and Mike followed soon after while I was left standing in the starting blocks. John managed to spread out all over the board and Chris' tactic seemed to be to always climb my bid by one. Although Dave will deny it, he seemed hell-bent on destroying me even when I was no longer a threat. It must have worked for him though, because, although he didn't win, he made quite a comeback late in the game and had a very real chance of winning. In the end John came out the victor with 126 point, followed by Chris with 112. Mike just missed passing Chris with 110 points. Dave managed 100 points even and Yours Truly brought in a measly 46 points! That's right, 46 points. There could be a thousand reasons why I did so poorly, I didn't spread out enough, I was too conservative in my bidding, etc. However, I prefer to think that I just stunk! Period, end of story!

After this, everyone was ready for something a little less taxing on the brain. "Scotland Yard" was the game of choice. We unanimously decided to have Chris take the role of Mr. X. I've often heard reports from people that play this game that Mr. X rarely gets away. These people need to play with Chris. We came close to catching him several times, but were never quite able to hem him in. He claims he was sweating a few times, but it certainly never showed. John and I both ended up running out of bus and taxi tickets so we couldn't move and Chris managed to last until the end of the game winning it.

Once again, the curtain closes on Game Night. I'm hoping that one of these days we will be able to play an entire game of "Mystery Rummy", "Durch die Wuste" is a great game, because its both easy and complex, "El Grande" is still one of my favorites, even if I am horrible at it, and, in spite of what people say, "Scotland Yard" can be a lot of fun. I don't see it being played to death, but I can see it appearing occasionally as either an opener or a closer. Now, I wonder how well "El Grande" works as a solitaire game...I need the practice.

This Internet thing sure is great! We had another person (John was the first) that contacted us through the Internet and wanted to join us. His name is Bruce and he moved up here recently from New Orleans. Including Bruce, there were five of us tonight. Myself, John, Dave and Matt made an appearance after a couple month absence.

Well, Bruce phoned to say he would be about a half an hour late or so (on his first night!!). So, the rest of us grabbed a four player game. This is a new one for the Kitchen Table called "Drunter & Druber" by Klaus Teuber. The game basically involves building chains of roads, city walls, and rivers on a grid-like board. The board is covered by 6 different types of buildings all ranging in value from 1 to 5. Everyone is secretly assigned a building that they want to protect and at the same time crush the other players' buildings by placing tiles over them. This is complicated by the fact that there are outhouses scattered throughout the board and if you place a tile to cover up an outhouse (often in order to crush a building) all players get to vote whether the tile stays or not. When no more tiles can be laid, the values of the remaining buildings of each type are totalled. Whoever was secretly assigned the building with the highest total is the winner.

The game got off to a fairly uneventful start with everyone laying seemingly random tiles, although most of the tiles being laid were city walls. The first building to fall under the crush of a tile was mine (go figure!), but I was nice and cool, never betraying what I felt inside. We did, however, guess John's building pretty early on when the walls were in a perfect place to crush the Town Hall and John laid a tile in the opposite direction. We had a difficult time discerning Dave's building though. It turned out that was because when one of his was crushed pretty early on in the game he accidentally played a "Yes" vote instead of a "No" vote. It almost worked too as very near the end of the game Dave's Schoolhouse had more points remaining on the board by far. This was a far cry from how my buildings were faring. Somehow my Waterworks buildings were getting crushed without a tile ever being placed over an outhouse. As a result, we never voted on those tile placements. The final scores ended up being John (Town Hall) 5 points, Matt (Museum) 5 points, Dave (Schoolhouse) 3 points and lastly me (Waterworks) with a single point. Even with that, the game was still quite a bit of fun.

Bruce had shown up during the last round of "Drunter & Druber", so we were trying to decide on what to play next. John and I were the only ones here tonight from our last get together and we both recommended another playing of "Kohle, Keis, & Knete". No one else offered a dissenting opinion, so out it came. I just can't say enough good things about this game! Once again, accusations were flying, fingers were pointing, people were yelling, people were laughing...and somehow, in the midst of all this, deals were being struck and money was being made. John made himself out to be the only honorable one at the table by sticking by an original deal even if another one came along at a better price with claims of "Sorry, I'm not that type of guy." Once again I was singled out as the guy to avoid because of actions on previous deals. This time it was by both Matt and Dave, who were operating on the "Buddy" system, taking every opportunity to strike deals with each other. Even though this was Bruce's first time at the Kitchen Table, no one cut him any slack as his investors were sent travelling on several occasions. I was without an Investor through a large part of the game and ended up in last place, but not by much. This was due in large part to the last deal of the game when I made a whopping $17 million. More than half of my final score. John handily took this game with $48 million. The rest of us managed a pretty tight race with Matt at $35 million, Bruce at $34 million, Dave at $33 million and yours truly at $32 million.

Next we brought out a game I had requested, "Elfenland". It had been a while since we've played this, so it was a nice change of pace. This was quite different than our game of "KK&K" as everyone seemed rather cordial. Everyone but me headed up Northeast into the mountains, while I took off to the Southwest to sweep around. Things seemed very even throughout the game and no one played a log until the 3rd turn. The game ended in a tie between Bruce and Dave, both with 19 cities and 2 cards left. I edged out John for 2nd place since we both visited 18 cities, but I had 2 cards and John had none. Matt rounded out the field with 17 cities.

With the hour getting late, we thought it only right that we introduce Bruce to the finer points of "Liar's Dice". Nothing very eventful to report here. Matt was the first to go out, followed by me. Bruce was out next. In the final showdown, John lost his last die while Dave still held onto 3 of his own.

By now Bruce really was ready to leave, but we introduced him to our "Liar's Dice" battlecry: "One more time!!" Once again, Matt was the first to go out. John was next. In our final showdown, Bruce and Dave each had one die left, and I was holding 4. Bruce challenged my bid and, lo and behold, I was exactly right, killing two with one stone!

Finally, we were ready to call it a night. "Drunter & Druber" made a great opener, getting everyone in the cut-throat mood. I am still amazed that "Kohle, Keis & Knete" ever went out of print, as it may very well be the best negotiating game out there. I'm glad we played "Elfenland" again, I really enjoy it and can't wait to play with the new "Elfengold" expansion, and, of course, there's "Liar's Dice". What can I say except..."One more time!!"

It's been a month since the last time we got together, so we really needed this Game Night "fix". Even so, we only had 5 people show up tonight: Chris, John, Josh, Mike, and me. On the upside, we have a couple of new games on the table.

Chris called ahead of time to let us know he was going to be a little late, so the rest of us decided on our first new game of the evening, "Scotland Yard" by Ravensburger. Josh was dressed in all black tonight, so the decision to make him "Mr. X" was unanimous. I've always heard that it is nearly impossible for Mr. X to win this game, but Josh sure gave us a run for our money. John, Mike, and I were having a very difficult time hemming him in, he was always able to slip between two of us. We would get close and he would, somehow, appear behind us. It looked like, this time, Mr. X was going to give us the slip...almost. On turn 18, Josh overlooked an underground station and surfaced just one space away from me. I nabbed him on my turn before he went back into hiding. The fact is, I almost missed it too. John was the one who finally saw it and pointed it out. Afterwards, we reviewed Josh's moves and found that, on several occasions, he would just move back and forth between two stations while we were convinced he was moving off in some other direction. Very sneaky! I've heard several people pan this game for being too light. I have to tell you, though, that we enjoyed it very much. It is a light game, but it's great for kick-starting the brain cells. It's also one of the best cooperative games I've played. Well, for all but one person anyway.

By this time Chris arrived. We were now ready for our next "new" game of the night, an out of print German game called "Kohle, Keis, and Knete". This game appeared on the Kitchen Table courtesy of our "Honorary Member", Ty. I was out of town a few weeks ago, and while I was gone he mailed it to me. When I returned, it was sitting there waiting for me, just begging to be played. Having heard quite a bit about this game I was anxious to introduce this to the rest of the group.

The basic premise of the game is you move around the board landing on "deals". If you decide to attempt to strike the deal you must get the required "families", controlled by the players, to agree to terms with you. There are various nasty things you can do while this is going on, of course, like sending certain family members on vacation, recruiting family members so they fall under your control, becoming the "Boss" so that you now control the deal, etc. When I first explained the rules there was definitely a feeling of "That's it? I'm just supposed to try to get everyone to agree with me?" I felt the same way when I first read the rules. However, you have to see it in action. It's a thing of beauty! The first couple deals started out a little slow while everyone was getting the hang of the negotiating, but it didn't take long until everyone was in full swing. In fact, I have recently finished our basement and have moved our Game Nights down there, my wife was in our bedroom two floors away and she came down to find out what was going on ("What the heck are you guys playing?...Boy, you're loud!")

I found the different styles of play very interesting. Chris, who is usually THE guy to beat in our group, ended up losing because he just wanted way too much for his investors, even when they weren't crucial to the deal. John, the winner, was a ruthless bargainer. He would come up with a price that would seem slightly high and, if you hesitated, raise it. Josh spent most of the time trying to partner with others and strike a "combined deal" with the boss. I just had fun screwing other people as the deal was about to go through, sending critical investors on vacation. Mike, who also did very well and proved to be a pretty ruthless negotiator, always liked to remind people how I screwed them three or four deals ago and they shouldn't even be talking to me! This from a guy who purports to be a good friend of mine!!

The final scores were John with 68 million, Mike with 50 million, I had 46 million, Josh with 44 million, and finally, Chris only had 30 million.

All in all, we ended up laughing, calling each other names, and expressing various degrees of disbelief ("I can't believe you agreed to that!") We are all quite anxious to play it again. We thought of playing it again immediately, but we were amazed at how tapped out we all felt after the game. I haven't seen our group this vicious since we played "Junta"! It is quite an exhausting ordeal. What fun!

After "KK&K" We thought we'd lighten things up a bit with "Take 6". This was Josh's first time playing it, so I explained the rules and we cut him no slack! In fact, our previous record for most points in one round (this is a bad record, by the way. In "Take 6" you want to try to have the lowest score!) was 32 points taken by Dave. Well, Dave wasn't here to defend his title, so Josh took it away from him with 39 points in the second round. Then, to cement his title, he proceeded to take 43 points in the third and final round! Mike won with an incredible score of only 13 points! John was next with 26, I had 38, Chris 40 and Josh set another record with a score of 95!

"Take 6" one more time! This game was much closer (for most of us). Mike had a rough time in this one. In the second round he took 40 points. If it weren't for Josh setting the record at 43 in the previous game Mike would have been the new champion! The final scores were Chris and John tied at 31, Craig 32, Josh 34, and Mike 90. To break the tie, Chris and John agreed to cut the cards. Chris came up the winner.

With that, Game Night was officially over. We all thought "Scotland Yard" was a great opener and will probably be playing it again soon. "Kohle, Keis, & Knete" was a HUGE hit! Everyone is anxious to have another go at this one (even Chris!) and "Take 6", once again, is a favorite closer. The cards are even starting to look a little dog-eared! Now all we have to do is figure out how we can get our gaming sessions closer than a month apart!

Only four of us tonight: John, Chris, Dave and me. Although, I guess this is a good thing; I remember when it was difficult to get this many people together. So, tonight I think we will play some of our four player games.

On two other occasions we have started a game of "Manhattan" with John when a fifth player showed up and we've had to stop. Since we knew no one else was showing up tonight, we thought we'd get a game of this in while we had the chance. With the exception of John, this was a very close game right from the start, but not in the way you may think. While Chris, Dave and I rarely had more than one point separating us, John shot out of the gate early and got a sizable lead on us. By the end of the second round he was 10 points ahead of the rest of us. We quickly rallied and began closing in on his neighborhoods. This game didn't have a concentration of a few colors in each neighborhood like our games usually do. Colors were spread evenly all over the board. In fact, I don't think there was a single neighborhood that didn't have at least one story of each color. Chris, once again, achieved his objective of having the tallest building on the board: "The Empire Chris Building". He informed John right at the start of the game that no one else was allowed to build the tallest building during the course of the game. We, of course, tried to deter him, but he just proved to be too determined. When I said the game was close, I mean it was very close. Dave ended up with the victory at 43 point, and the rest of us ended up tied at 40 points! This was our closest game ever.

The next four player game that hit the table was "Settlers of Catan". I'm finding I like this game more and more as time goes on. I've always enjoyed playing it, but it seems like the more I play it, the more the subtle strategies come out. Not that that helps me any, I still came in last place. Chris set himself up pretty nicely at the beginning of the game by putting one of his settlements on a three-way intersection of all Stone and his other settlement at a 2 for 1 Stone port. Dave and I were building at a slow-but-steady pace and John had stalled early on as the only thing he seemed to be able to get was Sheep. Bricks, which are very important in the beginning of the game, were extremely difficult to come by. Only two Brick hexes had settlements (one of which was mine) and they were positioned on the numbers "10" and "9". These two numbers just weren't coming up. In fact, after the game was over, we had observed that "9" only came up once and "10" had never been rolled during the entire game. Once Dave started building roads and branching out things began to pick up for him. He and Chris tossed the ownership of the Longest Road back and forth several times during the game. Toward the end of the game, I had stalled and couldn't seem to make anything happen. John, however, started doing a little better, but it proved to be too little, too late. Dave captured victory for a second time this evening with 10 points. Chris was right behind him with 8. John had 7 and I couldn't get past 6.

Time for a new game. I brought out "Mamma Mia". As with all every Uwe Rosenberg game that I've experienced, this game takes several playings to even understand the rules. Tonight was no exception. I explained the rules and was greeted with several puzzled and confused looks. I convinced everyone that it we would just play a game through things would become apparent. I dealt the cards and we played. The first round was awful. Dave kept saying how he hated the game and it was one of the worst he'd ever played. I implored him to just have patience. He was ready to give it a rating of "2" nonetheless. As we continued into round 2 everyone started to understand what was going on. They then saw that the penalty for playing an order that couldn't be filled was minor: you get it back at the bottom of you order pile. Sometimes it pays to do that just to get it out of your hand. You can always pick it up later. We finished the first game and agreed to give it another try. The second game was much better. A lot more orders were hitting the table. I could also tell that everyone was understanding it better by the fact that every time an order went onto the pile someone at the table would groan. When all was said and done John ended up filling 7 of his 8 orders. Chris filled 6, and Dave and I only sent out 4 pizzas each.

Time to call it a night. John finally got to play "Manhattan", still a great little game and the closest score I have ever seen, everyone still enjoys "Settlers of Catan", Dave had made several comments throughout the game about how enjoyable it is, and "Mamma Mia" will be played again in spite of the usual inability to grasp Rosenberg's rules right off the bat; still a very fun game even if it is a "brain burner".

6 people showed up tonight for fun and games: Chris C., Chris P., Mike, Dave, John and, of course, me.

We looked around for a warm up game, and, lo and behold, there was "Liar's Dice" (AGAIN!) It was such a big hit at our last get together that we thought it would be a good way to start out tonight. The game was pretty standard fair, with attrition taking it's toll. It finally came down to Chris C. and I, each with only 1 die left. I won on the final roll.

Now it was time to try out another game we've never played. I had just picked up "Junta" and 6 people seemed like a good number to give it a go. I set the game up, struggled through a rules explanation and away we went. It started off rather slowly as we needed to consult the rule book several times during the first few turns. Gradually, however, it all started coming together. Chris P. was our first El Presidente, but John quickly assassinated him at his Mistress'. Our next vote saw Mike take over the Presidential Palace. Dave and I supported John, but couldn't muster enough votes. Dave and I decided it would be a good idea to try to overthrow Mike's government early on. We were never able to gain enough support from the rest of the table as John (in spite of our supporting him for Presidente) threw in with Mike in order to collect a sizeable budget. We were never able to get Chris P. to join us and Mike managed to keep Chris C. in his back pocket by way of a hefty budget and making him Minister. Aside from our obvious weakness, Dave and I performed an unsuccessful Coup attempt, that saw me going before the firing squad. Mike's money pile was building up, so it seemed like a good idea for an assassination attempt. He fooled us all, however, by holding up his location chit and announcing to the table "Fun with Mike at the Nightclub!" The worst part of this whole ordeal was that he did it again...TWICE! Each time, after an assassination attempt, he would hold up the very same chit and announce "Fun with Mike at the Nightclub!" He kept claiming that the people loved him because he was such a fun president. Due to our slow start, time was running out and Chris P. had to leave. We talked him into staying for one last Coup attempt by...you guessed it, Dave and me. Once again we failed, although we were a bit closer this time. We managed to capture two of the five objectives needed (you need three for a successful Coup).

Because of time constraints, we had only played 7 turns of the possible 11 in "Junta", but did we have fun! Of all the games we have played over the past two years, I can't recall one that was this boisterous. Between the wheeling and dealing, the verbal jabs, and, of course, laughter, we made more noise playing this than even "Liar's Dice"! One of the funniest moments of the game was during one turn when Mike was proposing his budget. He allocated 3 million Pesos to John and 3 million Pesos to Dave. He was agonizing over how much to give me, because he wanted to keep me from attempting either an assassination or a Coup (he knew I was in the mood to do it). At the same time he didn't want to give me too much money. While he was trying to decide, Dave grew impatient and said, "C'mon, c'mon, decide already." To this Mike responded, "OK, Dave, let's see...what did I give you? OK, you now have zero and Craig gets 3 million Pesos." The table just erupted in laughter. Dave was talking to Mike, going back and forth between grovelling and threatening. He never did get anything for it and I did get my 3 million Pesos.

Chris P. went home for the evening, and the remainder of us broke out, what else, "Liar's Dice". We played two games of it before calling it a night. Chris won both of them. The best moment of these two games came when I bid 11 sixes and Dave called me on it. There turned out to be 17 sixes (including wild cards) forcing Dave to lose all 5 of his dice in one shot.

The night was now over. We had only played two different games, but still had ourselves a blast. I have a feeling "Liar's Dice" will probably not remain idle for more than a few weeks at most and we are all looking forward to our next game of "Junta". Next time it should go much smoother, now that we are all familiar with the rules. It truly is a great game, in spite of it's very inferior components. As people were leaving for the evening, every one of them told me to put them down for a rating of 9 or 10. Next time, though, I'm sending my assassin to the Nightclub.

Five people tonight for games: three regulars, Chris, Dave, Josh and myself, and a new person, Chris P. Chris P. hasn't really been exposed to many of these kinds of games, so we decided to start him off with some of the same ones that got us into gaming. In addition, it's always fun to return to your roots.

Josh told us ahead of time that he was going to be late, so we decided to play a four-player game until he arrived. Out came "Manhattan". This is a great game for introducing people to "German" style games. The rules are simple, it plays quickly and it has fairly deep strategy, but not overly so. The first two rounds were pretty routine with petty little conflicts breaking out here and there. I managed to control 2 neighborhoods uncontested until the third round, when Dave began pointing it out to everyone. I then proceeded to get hammered. Once again, Chris managed to build the "Empire Chris Building" to go after the tallest building points. Josh showed up while we were in round 4 and I tried, unsuccessfully, to slide the table out so he could sit down. Actually, the table slid just fine. It was the "Empire Chris Building" that didn't survive. Fortunately, we all remembered where the pieces were and in a remarkable feat of engineering we reconstructed it. Chris ended up winning it all with 45 points followed by Dave and I tied at 35. Chris P. was last with 27, but hey, it was his first time.

Looking at our game collection, we thought we could introduce Chris P. to "Acquire"; another one of our old standbys. The game started out with everyone establishing a hotel chain on their turn and adding on to them. It was quite a few turns before the first merger took place and by that time everyone was pretty much cash poor. I was lucky enough to be involved in the first merger. I ended up being the majority stockholder in the "Festival" chain and chose the option of hanging onto my 10 shares. Even though it was pretty early in the game, Chris looked at me and said, "You may have just won the game." I thought it was a good move also, but I don't know if it was THAT good of a move. Anyway, it did end up paying off later when "Festival" was again established and taken over. The end of the game saw "American" as the chain with over 41 hotels. Chris ended up being the majority stockholder and collected a pretty penny. It was not quite enough to edge me out, though. I ended up winning with $41,900. Chris came in second with $39,100 (one more tile added to the "Tower" chain would have put him within $400 of me.) Josh ended up with $38,400, Dave had $28,400 and Chris P. had $23,600.

By now it was getting pretty late and we thought we would play one more quick game. "Liar's Dice" hit the table. The first game saw Josh lose 4 dice at one shot and Chris as the winner. When that game concluded Chris P. announced that he would be leaving. We all said our goodbyes and went back to play some more "Liar's Dice". Little did I know how much more. We were having such a riot playing that the refrain "One more time!!" kept coming up. We ended up playing 7 more games of "Liar's Dice". Chris won another one as did Josh. I ended up winning 2 and Dave took the title with 3 wins.

It was now after 2:00 AM and we all had to get up for work in the morning. So, we agreed to call it a night (finally!) It was great playing "Manhattan" again. It's simplicity and strategies are always enjoyable. I also find it interesting how we used to think of "Acquire" as one of our more difficult games when we first started getting together. It has a very elegant system. Its easy to see why it is considered a classic. "Liar's Dice" remains the noisiest game we play. We really should rethink playing it in the wee hours of the morning (although everyone at my house managed to sleep through it!) Maybe its time to break out "Pit".

Since it had been so long between our last game sessions, I made a few phone calls and got a last minute session together to try out some more of our 4 player games. The four players that showed up were Chris, John, Josh and myself.

Out came one of those new games that we hadn't played yet, "Ursuppe". After explaining the rules and enduring the strange looks while explaining "excreting" we were off and...um...swimming. A few of us had some initial trouble placing our new amoebas and remembering that the drift was going to change. We wound up slamming into the walls and such. Josh ended up getting an amoebae stuck in the little "alcove" at the top of the board and was never able to get it out. It ended up starving to death. After a few turns the right side of the board was covered in green excrement (mine) and the bottom of the board in yellow (Josh). This caused a number of starvations as there wasn't enough of a mix to get a good, square meal. Also, a lot of amoebas ended up collecting just under the compass creating quite a traffic jam (and some more starvations!) In the end Chris won with 46 points and the genes "Division Rate", "Substitution" and "Movement 1". I came in second with 43 points and the genes "Escape", "Movement 2" and "Streamline". John made a last ditch effort to pass Josh but just missed. Josh had 40 points and only "Life Expectancy" while John ended up with 39 points and "Movement 2", "Persistence", "Spores", and "Intelligence" most of which he purchased on the last turn.

Next came a game that most of us had played before, but it was the first time for Chris: "Medici". Right from the start John seemed to own the board. The cards kept falling his way and he ended up buying quite a few cargoes at great prices. It paid off for him as he destroyed the rest of us with 148 points. I was a distant second with only 127 followed by Josh with 114 and Chris with 110. In spite of his losing the game, Chris enjoyed it and gave it very high praise. We'll be playing this one again soon.

Lastly, we brought out our old standby "Modern Art". I love this game and normally do very well at it. I say "normally" because tonight was not my night. I know one of the problems was that I was sitting to Chris' left. That's a problem because Chris loves to play the "single double" auction card, that is he often plays just one card of a double auction card just to force the person to his left to either play a card they don't want to or pass. Neither of these options is very palatable. Sure enough, he caught me twice in the course of the game with this exact play. I was never able to recover from it. Chris won easily with $575,000, then Josh with $459,000. John had $353,000 and I fared horribly with a mere $345,000.

Another Game Night comes to an end. Everyone enjoyed "Ursuppe" and actually said that they would like to play it again now that they understand the strategy. "Medici" is rapidly becoming one of our favorites and "Modern Art" just can't seem to lose its appeal (thank goodness!)

With all the snow we've been getting this month, we've had to cancel quite a few Game Nights. So, this is the first time we've been able to get together in a month. Even so, only four of us could make it tonight: me, Chris, John M. and John G., who has gamed with us on a couple past occasions.

John G. was running a little late, so John M., Chris and I were looking for a decent 3 player game until he showed up. I took the opportunity to introduce them to "Schnappchen Jagd". This is a game that I've found has a fairly steep learning curve, not in the rules, but in the strategy. In the initial playing it isn't apparent that you should not only collect the bargain that you have displayed, but you should also be collecting bargains for your "Junk Pile" in the hopes of changing them from negative to positive points. I figure this is why I did so well compared to John and Chris, although they didn't do too badly; neither one ended up with a negative score (something that happened to me the first time I played.) I won with a whopping 17 points followed by Chris with 7 and John with 6.

John G. had shown up just as we were finishing our last hand of "Schnappchen Jagd". Since there were only four of us we thought it would be a good idea to play one of our new games that was made for four players. John M. had brought along "Euphrates & Tigris", so the choice was a no-brainer.

None of us had ever played "Euphrates & Tigris" so John M. did the honors of explaining the rules. Since I'm usually the one explaining the rules, everyone else got a kick out of me asking questions. Once we got through that, the game began. I was only about half sure of the rules when we started (as I think everyone other than John was), but they became readily apparent as play proceeded. The fact that John M. was more familiar with the rules may have been a slight advantage for him, although John G. seemed to grasp them right away and gave John M. a run for his money. I was the first person to build a monument, but it was quickly taken away from me with a Catastrophe tile. I reconnected to it and another Catastrophe tile took it away again. I was never able to get it back. John M. managed to build two monuments that kept him in blue and green points for quite a while, until John G. took it from him. Chris never seemed to be able to draw a temple tile (red) and was subsequently never able to win an internal battle. In fact, Chris was never able to win any battles, internal or external. This resulted in his having a very low score and I'm afraid it has tainted his opinion of the game. The final score was John M. 11, John G. 8, I had 7 and Chris only pulled in 3 points.

It was now just after midnight. Chris and John G. decided to call it a night. We bid them goodbye and John M. and I sat down to a game of "Caesar & Cleopatra". I had played this game one other time with Mike and thought it was OK, but not great (Mike, on the other hand, absolutely hated it!) So, I was anxious to play it again to see if it improved with a second playing. John managed to get me on the defensive right away and I was never able to rebound. It seemed like I was always trying to prevent him from taking Patriarchs and was never able to set myself up for winning one. When the game finally ended, about 40 minutes later, John was the victor with 20 points to my mere 10.

So, with John and I closing up shop, Game Night was over. It looks like "Schnappchen Jagd" is a decent three player game, but one that you must play on a fairly regular basis in order to compete well, I want desperately to play "Euphrates & Tigris" again. Not just because I thoroughly enjoyed it, but also because I want to get Chris to try it again before he passes final judgment, and "Caesar & Cleopatra" proved to be a very good game, in spite of my getting trounced! All I have to do is tie Mike to a chair and force him to play it again to see if his opinion will change (or maybe I'll just let him win next time!)