Game Night

Friday August 28, 2009 Well, if you teach a game enough, you are bound to win it at some point. Such was the case with the first game of the evening - Chicago Express (or Wabash Cannonball as we technically played my version of the game). This evening I taught the game to Steve Bauer and Greg Perschbacher. Nathan Winchester and Noah Antwiller filled out the game (each has played before). I went into the game with no plan at all and ended up being the only player without a share to start. Lucky me, Noah sat to my right and began the game. Unfortunately for him, I stole the next share of red for $10, which was more than anyone else had left (we started at $24 each). Of course, that left me with enough cash ($14) to take any other share I wanted in any other company. Nobody left felt like null capitalization, so I got my second share of red immediately. Noah and I easily kept red from getting killed by anyone else, and it felt obvious that I was going to be able to win this game pretty easily. I pushed the game to its conclusion after about 4 rounds and won. Steve immediately saw that the opening bids had been much too high and I hope we get to play this again soon.
Next up for the evening was the old classic El Grande. The five of us sat down for this and added a couple of the expansions since I brought the Decentennial edition. I made the mistake of roaring out to an early lead after the first round and got a beat down from everyone after that. My only hope was an event card from one of the expansion stacks, which never materialized. Of course, I finished about as far back as one could. Noah and Steve appeared to be in good position for the end run, and Steve pushed ahead for what I believe was his first El Grande win.
Erik VonBurg had come in while we were playing El Grande, and when we were through, he and Nathan and I sat down to play a game of Torres. Nathan pointed out that I had taught him a rule incorrectly. He said that unused tower pieces rolled over all the time - phase to phase and round to round. I was sure that wasn't the case, but the rules indicated otherwise. Looking it up later, I discovered that the rule had changed. Honestly, I'm not sure why. The game was better when you felt like you had to use the tower pieces before you lost them. I got just enough of my good cards and was able to feed off both Nathan and Erik's castles for the win.