Gipf without GIPF

Nathan Winchester stopped over Thursday night to play a few games. While I was helping my wife load up the car with stuff, Nathan was looking over the collection and inquired about my set of GIPF games (which of course doesn't even include the original GIPF itself). I told him we could play them all (easily) in the night, so I pulled them down. We started with YINSH, which is the longest of the group as far as I have seen (having not played GIPF itself). I enjoy YINSH a lot, but I don't seem to be very good at it. I must be getting a little better though, because I managed to hold on for a win over Nathan, though I think that was only due to having played a number of times.
Next we moved to DVONN. I had not ever played this before, but I saw it played once - it was quick. This is a very very short game and it clicked with me for whatever reason. I really liked it a lot. I also beat Nathan soundly, capturing all the stacks. With this being short, I may just keep it in the bag each game night so that I have filler when I want to avoid Jerry from now on.
We took a small break from the GIPFD series to playa short game with my son Ashton. He had brought over The Great Race and asked if we'd play it with him. Since it is short and he was going to bed soon, I said yes (thanks for playing Nathan). The great race is an overly simple roll and move race game, with no decision making at all. I only keep this for my 3.5 year old daughter, as this is easy enough for her to play. Nathan and his motorcycle managed to beat me and my race car and Ashton and his roller skates.
Heading back to the GIPF games, we played PUNCT - which is yet another one of the series I'm terrible at. I just can't see the game. I don't hate this one, but man do I suck at it. Nathan won in less time than it took me to explain the game.
Lastly, we played ZERTZ, which I don't care for. I don't know what this game has done to me, but I just don't like it - and I've won both times I've played it. This time, I manipulated Nathan and grabbed three white marbles pretty quickly to win. Nathan commented that the marbles are annoying (since you have to keep them from rolling off the table). I agree. Its a nice looking game, but annoying.
After putting up the GIPF series, I pulled out Tikal. This is a good intro to the action point set of games (I think Nathan will really like Torres when we get to it). I have not played this two player before, but wanted to teach Nathan so we could play it a bit online. We played the normal (non-auction variant) and the game was quite close in the end. I capped two big pyramids early on (10 and 9), but Nathan was keeping up with his huge amount of recovered treasures. In fact, after the third volcano, he was leading me by two points. That probably saved me, letting me score first in the last scoring. I managed to win over Nathan by two points.