Games Played - 29 June 2016

A lot of very regular attenders, even Dave D, just happened to all be missing tonight, leaving the survivvors to wonder if we'd be down to just one table, for the first time for a very long time.  We managed 7 though, including Moray who was a first- and possibly last-time attender as he was on a brief training course a long way from his home.

The two Marks and Steve W settled down for a long game of 51st State, and 150 minutes later Mark W had  won, followed by Steve W then Mark R, though the scores look close (44/41/37).

On our table we started with a 4-player Amun-Re, it plays well with 4 but after many games with 5 I'd forgotten that you're more likely to get camel money in the 4-player, studiously avoided the camel areas and so was virtually permanently poor after a predominance of low sacrifices (only the last one reached 3 I think) .  Moray got a good 1st Epoch start picking up both largest pyramid bonuses (were we regulars guilty of concentrating on each other ignoring the newby?), then trounced us in 2nd Epoch, finishing off with most cash and scoring 3 of the end 3Vp bonuses - very rarely seen at the Club, I think I did it once a long time ago and maybe a couple of others?  Scrupulous honesty, which always rules at the Club, robbed me of 2nd place, Steve H initially missed one of his farmers for game end income, it was pointed out, and the extra cash was a swing of 4 Vp against me, so it ended  : Moray 49/Steve H 39/Rob 38/Mike 36

We finsihed off with the excellent 45-minute filler Santiago de Cuba, owning the frequently-visited VP building and a very lucrative shipment mid-game meant I thought I was pretty sure of the win coming into the last shipment phase, but SteveH pulled a last 2VP cargo that I hadn't expected, to make it very close : Mike 29/Steve H 28/Rob 27/Moray 21

Anpther great night of gaming!