Board game club gathered yesterday to play some games. I was actually rather satisfied with the games I played, I managed to play just about everything I set out to play.
We started with San Marco. I’d like to try the game with three players, but once again we had four. It doesn’t matter, because despite what people say, I think San Marco is a pretty good four-player game. I like it a lot, anyway. I didn’t win (I placed third), but at least I managed to improve my standing in the end a bit. San Marco seems to be quite close and exciting until the end, which of course makes it a tad random but also nicely tense. I like it.
However, I don’t like Aquarius. Ilari got us to play this hippie game from Looney Labs. It was horrible experience. The cards look very good, I like the bold graphical style of them, but the game is a boring sequence of meaningless action. I felt the actions possible were insignificant because of the game’s randomness. If you’re close to winning, it’s likely someone will switch or shuffle goals and oops, you’re way back again. It was such a relief when Ilari finally won the game.
It was time for some good games now. Four players, let’s see: oh yeah, it’s Crokinole time! What’s even better, we won 100-0. That was comforting after the horrible horrible Aquarius experience.
Union Pacific was one of those games I longed to play — it’s been such a long time since I last played it. It got a rather good reception and I certainly had a good time playing it. It’s not completely unlike Alhambra, but I think UP is better of the two. The board is a bit useless, perhaps, but I think the trains add good theme element to the game. The hook of the game (to invest or to build) is very delicious.
After Union Pacific it was Poker. I got four other players to play some Texas Hold’em with me. We weren’t playing for real money, which of course makes the game a bit flat. However, to make the play money more significant, I created a new currency for our club. Everyone gets 1000 credits, which can be used for gambling. In the end of the year, the player with the most credits left wins a prize. It’s going to be interesting to see how it catches on. Our Poker game went well, at least for me. Thanks to two lucky hands (two pairs and a four fives), I managed to gather about 100 credits from the other players. Texas Hold’em is an interesting game worth trying, I think it’s the best version of Poker I’ve played.
After Poker one of us left and four remained. We were already sitting by the round table designated for Crokinole, so what can you do? It was time for my second Croke victory that afternoon!
My final game in the club was a four-player Flaschenteufel. It was probably my worst game ever. We played seven rounds and I got -4 points! I got the bottle four times and once I didn’t take a single trick. I had only two positive rounds, making total of 43 points. Others feasted on points, the final scores were 188, 143, 121 and -4. Now that’s boring…
One response to “Club meeting”
Glad you’re enjoying hold’em, it is certainly the most popular current variety of poker.
An alternative to a credit system would be to play no-limit hold’em tournaments, which are still pretty fun even if you’re not playing for money. Every player gets a set number of chips, the blinds start at about 1% and 2% of that total number, and double every 15-40 minutes. So, for instance, everyone gets 100 in chips and the blinds start at 1 and 2 for the small and big blinds. Then they double every 15 minutes, to 2-4, 4-8, etc. Bets and raises can be any amount of money, up to the size of the player’s stack.
Keep playing until only one player is left and everyone else has busted out. Then assign points to players based on how many players they outlasted — the first place gets (N-1) points, and each lower spot gets half the number of points of the person in front of them. So coming second in a 9-person tournament (4 points) earns the same as coming first in a 5-person tournament (4 points). Keep a running point total and the highest points at the end of the year wins a prize. That will probably be more fun, and last better, than a credit system — tournaments are much more exciting, especially when playing no-limit hold’em.