January 2007 Archives

There are two important Tichu adages:

• "Don't play for the bomb."
• "If you make all of your Tichus, then you are not calling it enough."

I failed to live up the the first. I could have played my pair of aces, but no.... Ed certainly lived up to the second.

Age of Renaissance

Next up was a long and meaty game at Great Hall Games. Marty, Adam, Jon, Harry, Brendan, and myself played this game. It was a first for Jon, Brendan, and myself. Although, I have played Manifest Destiny before. I was France and stayed mostly within Central Europe. I didn't get ships for far too long in this game. I was bummed at the start since one of my cards was a metal card and there were two metal spots next to me. But both Marty and Adam claimed those spots before I could and I could not win them back for quite a while. And this game penalizes you for holding cards and not paying them. You pay triangle points in money for the number of cards that you hold to the next round. So that move cost me more than I made. And later on in the game, when I had conquered all of the region of France, Jon whispers into my ear that he is holding the Black Plague card. Argh! I had forgotten this card and the experience of being almost wiped out by it in Manifest Destiny. ... by Jon, in fact! Anyways, I was not in the lead, so he played it against Harry, who was.

I also made another mistake once by not keeping enough money to pay to hold my cards. This cost me a misery spot. Misery spots are essentially negative victory points. And, if you get too many of them, you can automatically loose.

This was an interesting game. And one that I will play again in the future.

The group went down to Pease park today and there was a little bit of confusion at the start. 10 am was originally proposed. But we always seem to forget about the mini-tournament that starts about that time. So someone else proposed earlier. Unfortunately, no one responded. It seems that the email on the mailing list was congested.

I arrived early at 9:30. I thought that, in the worst case, I would just practice for half an hour. Jon also arrived at that time. When we looked around we saw everyone's cars but no everyone. So we figured that they started without us and we started playing. We finally connected up with the group at hole 4.

The recent rains were in evidence here. The normally dry creek bed now had water in it. Which John managed to find.

And, initially, I thought that that was the extent of it. But some of the tee boxes were mud pools. Not fun.

And one part of the climb up a hill was deeply muddy. As Adam found out when he almost lost his shoe to the grip of the mud.

Marty eventually caught up with us around hole 10 or so after working in the morning.

Afterwards, the group went to Changos for lunch. It was a dog friendly in that it had outdoor seating. And the food was quite good I thought. For the fast-food type of restaurant that it was.

Another round of disc golf at Old Settler's Park (Winter Course) for me. And at least I had two good first throws on holes 8 and 9.

They removed all of the cut down brush and made a mess of the grass. Tire tracks everywhere...

Call My Bluff

We started out the night with this filler game. And boy were the dice against me! Apparently the rule of the night was not to call. Instead, you were supposed to move the dice up by one. Because there were far more dice under the cups showing whatever number was declared to exist than you thought. Or were probable to exist.

Ra

Next up was one of the great Knizia auction games. I started out with low numbers. So my strategy was apparent: call Ra as often as possible. Jon was amused that his numbers were pipping mine. So if I put out my 2, Jon would put out his 3. Or if I put out my 6, Jon would put out his 7. But that only works once. My goal was to get some great tiles cheaply.

Adam did have one lucky streak at the end of the second era. He was the last person active and was able to turn up a number of good tiles to fill up the board. Which he bought. And then turn up a couple of tiles before a Ra tile finally appeared. He then bought those because he was one Ra away from ending the second era.

Tichu

Ugh, while I was certainly happy to play Tichu, I was not happy to be slaughtered at it. First Marty started off well. Then, I caught us up. Next, Jon took us down a peg. And then Adam obliterated me. I called Grand Tichu. Unfortunately, Adam had two length 5 bombs, the Dragon, two aces, and some other card. Pretty unstoppable....

Fearsome Floors

We ended out with another light-weight but fun game. This game is very thematic. You are trying to escape a monster before it eats you. The monster follows some very simple rules. Turn towards the closest person that it can see unless people on both sides are equally close. Move one step closer. Eat someone if it lands on top of them. You have three people that cycle through a maximum number of moves (1/6, 3/4, 4/3).

We played this game with the double monster variant. Which turns this game into a shorter and bloodier game. Unfortunately, it was clear that I was going to win. So the group turned to discussing how to stop me. Which I hate. I mean, I am all for each person knowing what to do and making moves to stop the leader. But when one player says "you should move this way to stop this person from winning", I feel that this ruins the game. It is not fun to play against the group-think. Of course, they stopped me from winning. And Francesca, who was in second place, won the game instead.

The sushi group went out to Sushi Sake today to try their world famous spicy Susan. We all agreed that Susan was creamy, not too spicy, and more than enough of her to go around.

The aftermath was not pretty. One lone voodoo wasabi figure in a sea of creamy sauce.

Ed's Grand-Tichu call was a classic case of Grand-Tichu chicken. Its late. The game is almost over. You need to take a chance. And your partner has picked up the rest of their cards. When I had the Dragon, Phoenix, Dog, and one Ace, I knew Ed was in trouble. I was tempted to over Tichu, in fact. But I played it safe instead. Jon did try his best to disrupt us. But he led a single card to Ed when I had the Dragon and Phoenix left in my had. Ed played a King. And I thought about being tricky and playing the Phoenix on top of that. But I didn't and Dragoned it instead. Adam played an Ace on my Phoenix and went out shortly after that.

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Wow, what a beautiful day compared to the cold and miserable ones we have been suffering though lately. Highs in the 60s, sunny and cloudless. Perfect for disc golf. We played the full winter course today. And John tried thumbing a throw on hole 3. Not only did it not go very far. But it embedded itself into the ground.

Three of us in the game group are Tichu fanatics. So we usually have to force one other person to play with us. John has been that victim often enough. And apparently it has converted him enough to want to hold a Tichu meetup! He planned on spreading the word to new people.

Apparently, mocking does not constitute spreading the word. I wonder who he is talking about here...

Tichu

My first game was with Ed, Susan, and Curt. Susan constantly shies away from Tichu games. So today was an excuse to get back on the horse for her. And boy did she start off strong. Four Tichu calls in a row! Ed had the perfect hand to both stop her once and over-Tichu. I was a little worried at the end. The opposing team caught up thanks to Ed's Tichu calls. But the Tichu and one/two was enough for a knockout punch.

Tichu

Ed and Susan, being the non-Tichu players that they were, went off to play Yspahan. This left us with two tables. I joined Adam, Betty, and Lauren. Betty and Lauren were both really new to the game. So this game was a basic, learn how the game works, kinda game. Lauren was my partner and unfortunately, she did not realize that this is a partnership game. If you cannot, or are unlikely to, call Tichu, then you should pass your best card to your partner in order to help that person call Tichu. So, for the most of the game, I received the third worst card from Lauren's hand in the pass.

Tichu

The second game was much like the first. I never got a Tichu hand and we got trounced.

What is this, my eighth posting in the pizza series? I must be boring you folks by now. But I could care less. After all, this is my journal, dammit!

I followed through with the threat I made last time and cooked up some curry sauce! I used three cups of water, one of the packets of solid curry (which kinda looks like a bar of chocolate), and four teaspoons of cornstarch. I wanted a gelatin-like consistency and boy did I get it. Since I like the Japanese meal of breaded pork, vegetables, curry sauce, and rice, I cooked a peppercorn marinated pork tenderloin. I also sauteed a mix of vegetables: corn, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. I was a little worried about the mozzarella cheese. But I shouldn't have been. Oddly enough, cheese was an ingredient in the curry mix.

Mmmm, all nice and cooked. It was not bad even. I would certainly make it again. Hrm, I wonder what to make next. Perhaps pancetta ham, asparagus, Béchamel sauce and Gruyére cheese? I'm telling you, the possibilities are endless! However, I will run out of prefixes for my Pizza -dux entries...

John and I braved the cold weather for some disc golf. It has been a while because of the rain. And it looks like they are going to install concrete tee pads for the winter course. The disc golf group has been talking about it here. We also had someone volunteer to join us for a round of golf. His name was Matthew. With John and myself, all we were missing was Luke.

The rains have not drained off yet. There were still puddles and mud around here.

Interesting, it seems that they have cut back all of the trees and brush that had grow up along the fence line. I wonder why?

And I don't seem to remember that river either. Maybe the landscaping has changed the drainage? At this point, John bailed out on us. He said his nose was too cold...

I stopped by the H.E.B. during my lunch break to pick a few things up. Normally, I like to get in and out as fast as humanly possible. Why spend more time in this place than you have to? There was a little bit of a congestion around the frozen food section today. It seems they were filming a commercial for the Super Bowl with Emmit Smith. There were a couple of policemen hanging around, so I was wondering why they were needed. And I only found out when I went through the checkout lane.

Der Elefant im Porzellanladen

Ed brought out this light filler that he had ordered on the last Adam-Spielt order. Adam suggested Tichu and boy did I regret not playing Tichu instead. But Elefant a new game, and I had to try it out at least once. The mechanics are simple. You can either buy cards that you can score with. Or, you can take a card that forces you to discard cards for money. Maybe it was because we had five players. Or maybe it was because I started last. Whatever the reason, I spent the entire game being forced to make moves that would hose me. The vast majority of the moves were automatic. And on the few times where I had a choice (either take a point card or take a discard card), I felt that my choice had little impact on the game. Ugh. I doubt that I will give this game a second chance.

Struggle for Rome

Ed also brought Struggle for Rome which is the new Settlers game. I definitely wanted to play this one. It fits within the Settlers family quite well. Some negatives about this game were:

• there was not much trading going on
• the board is static. However it does make for a good map of Europe
• there is likely more robbing with the thief in this game
• there are a lot of routes on the map that take time to figure out which one to use

Some positives about this game are:

• On your turn you roll dice until you come up with four unique rolls. Everyone gets the resources for these rolls. This evens out the unprobable dice rolls
• good niggly bits: two tribes, wagons, gold coins
• thematic fit of barbarians invading Rome

It was my first game of this, so I took quite a while figuring out what to do. I didn't want to make any beginner's mistakes. Ed and Susan could have helped by pointing out what worked for them in the past and where the good spots were on the board. I tried to go for the 2 point bonus that you get if a tribe conquers all five areas. And I was able to get that for both of my tribes. I probably wasted a turn on both tribes since I got two tokens for one of the five colors. And I was able to get the largest army equivalent (in this game it is the biggest diplomat). So all I needed for the win was to settle in four spots. Which I was able to do. Unfortunately, Doug was able to get 11 points on that turn for the win. Still, it was an interesting game. And one that I will play again.

Tichu

First, I must give credit to John. He called an awful lot of Tichus, and made most of them. He also called a couple of Tichus before the pass. Way to be aggressive, John. Doug also called some Tichus as well. Adam just continued his string of poor card luck and was silent the whole game.

On my second Tichu call, I called Tichu first. John then over-Tichus me. He bombed in with an eight bomb. Later on, I responded with a three bomb. Which Doug promptly over-bombed with a nine bomb. Unfortunately for Doug, he could not pass control over to John and I went out first.

I did not drive into work today either. The winter weather advisory was still active until 10am. The toll-road was still closed (since it is entirely elevated for the majority of the road). I would be forced to take IH-35 and I imagine that it would be painfully slow.

All thats left of our little ice storm are these melting reminders...

And WTF is up with Austin running out of sand and de-icing supplies??? After two and a half days, both TXdot and the airport ran out stuff. They had to close the flyovers. I think it should be mandatory to keep at least 7 days worth of supplies!

Today was a real disappointment. Yesterday, the weatherman was showing a contour-map that depicted possible snowfall levels. Each line was supposed to be 1/2" of snow. And Williamson county could get 1/2 to 1 inch of snow! Bah! Even one day in future, weathermen are still clueless. There was no snow this morning. Or sleet for that matter. Only a quarter inch of ice on the half dormant lawn.

Ugh, it is turning out to be quite the ice event here in Round Rock. Yesterday was icy. Today was even more icy. And tomorrow promises snow.

But the ice accumulation wasn't as bad as in the past. I remember having to run my garden hose over a tree one day because it was bending down and touching the ground.

Another great Mexican pizza just came out. This time, I slowly rotated it so that the rotisserie burner could brown the crust evenly.

Call My Bluff

Gamers abhor standing around. So a quick filler game was brought to the table. I like this game. Especially when there are abnormal rolls. For example, on four dice, I rolled all stars. So I put the bid on 4 stars even though the odds said that it was likely that there was another one out there. I was called and it turned out that there were 6 out there. The picture shows another unlikely occurrence. Everyone rolled a five or a star! When it was stated that 5 of the six dice were fives, someone naturally called it. And lost!

Imperial

Next up on the table was Imperial. This time we finally used the advanced start rules where there is a once around process where you buy shares in a country. I definitely like that version better. But this game still needs another tweak. You should be able to buy shares in a country when that country is done with its turn. It just takes too long for the investor marker to make its way around to you. I had money in my pocket that was just not utilized. Especially when Adam ended the game just before I was able to improve the multiplier in my country.

Lost Valley

Next up on the table was Lost Valley. And I definitely wanted to play it. It has been a while since I last played it. This time, I decided to buy a boat and a sieve and run along the river while exploring for river-gold. Sadly, I didn't find that much of it. I was able to get ten chips for a total of 12 gold. And at that point I had a decision to make. I could end the game, but it was likely that Curt had more gold than I did. I would be playing for second place. So I decided against that and decided to start mining some mountain-gold. My river exploration had turned up a nice pile of it at the end of the river.

But the game turned into a version that I really hate. And that is the fact that you cannot complete getting victory points in one operation. You must first open up a mine. And then spend actions to mine the gold. However, other people can take advantage of the work that you did to mine the gold on their turn. Due to the load of supplies that I was carrying, I could not open a mine and then mine for gold immediately. If I opened the mine, then Curt and Adam could mine out all of the gold before I would be able to get some.

It turned into a Mexican standoff. Unfortunately, Curt was in the lead at this point and I needed Curt to open up the mine first. It was in Curt's best interest to just wait. But eventually he succumbed and went off to start a mine. Adam chased after him and I was able to start another one myself.

And at the end of the game, the score was close. I had scored 18 gold and Curt and Adam scored 17!

When John and I drove home, we came across an accident that had still not cleared after 6 hours! Apparently the rain had caused an 18-wheeler to run up the side of an overpass.

My Adam Spielt order finally arrived from Germany. It was shipped out on 12/08 and arrived on 1/12. Five weeks is longer than average for them. I guess the various postal carriers took a lot of holidays during that time.

But the disincentive to order from them is building. Most of the German games are coming out quicker than ever here in the states. Yspahan, Imperial, and Space Dealor were all orderable from U.S. before my games arrived. But perhaps the biggest problem is the dollar is falling against the Euro. The conversion rate was 1.3626320196645147348802031279544. Ouch!

I finally picked up the first "official" description of the winter-course at Old Settlers Park. On Wednesday night at 8pm, I make my way out to the billboard at OSP. I was told by the person who runs the weekly disc golf group that he would leave a copy for me there. It was quite an adventure getting there. They have taken out one of the entrances to the park due to road construction. But I ignore the large construction sign and cross where the new road will be placed to make it to the park road. Only to find out 50 feet later that they blocked the other side of the road as well. So I make it back out onto the main road and drive out to the second entrance and then to the billboard.

I can figure out from the course description where most of the tee boxes are. But I have questions about a couple of them. And, after a email to the leader of the group, I was still unsure of a couple of holes. So today I went out in the gloomy weather to do some exploring. He said that he would mark the tee boxes off with spray paint. And he certainly did that. I was able to answer all of my questions.

Here is the view from hole 7. It is a short and straight throw. Two trees have been marked as "mandatory" (meaning that you must pass to one side of them. since there is one on the left and one on the right, this will form a gate to pass through).

Hole 8 was the biggest of the unknowns. And I have finally found it. It also forms a tunnel to where the basket lies. But it is more forgiving. If you can avoid the trees of course.

And here is where hole 10 is. I had suspected that previously. But a confirmation is nice.

Hrm... that's not a good sign. There is a pile of rocks out by the lake.

Augsburg 1520

I tried another playing of Augsburg. I played it in the last week of December, so I thought that I remembered the rules. But I did get one rule completely wrong and some other rules slightly wrong. Sigh. People love to catch and report those issues. Kinda makes you want to never try out a new game...

Sticheln

Susan wanted to try out Sticheln next. As a three player game, I must say that Sticheln is at its best. And it is a good game for giving you the feeling of impending doom. But I was dealt some rather painful hands. When I pick 4 of a color as my initial pain card, you know I had some rather hard choices. So I spent most of the game looking over my collection of games and thinking "I would rather be playing this game...".

Tichu

To end out the night, a game of Tichu was called for. On my first hand, I called Tichu. I was a little worried when Doug over-bombed my point-grabbing bomb. However, not only did I make it out first, but my partner, Jon, made it out second. It was a good start to the game.

And then we ran out of steam. The other side was catching up. Fortunately, we crossed the finish-line first.

Interesting. When I went to home depot to get a refill on propane, I discovered that they have now automated the whole process. You either insert a credit card or scan in your receipt (wrapped around a credit card amusingly enough). One of those doors will then pop open. Your task is to figure out which. You place the empty container inside and close the door. Another door will pop open and you hunt again. You then take the full container from the spot.

Pretty easy and it beats having to wait around for an associate to show up.

Just saying...

All in all, ordering from Zappos was pretty quick and easy. As long as you know your shoe size, it couldn't be easier.

Wow. Five one/twos in the game. For Adam's Tichu call, he decided to call it because of the passed cards. Both Jon and Adam passed low cards to each other. Ed starts the round out by wishing a card out of Jon's hand. Since Jon did not decide to call Tichu, Adam decides to make the riskier call. He figures that Jon had a strong hand since he passed low. This would promote his hand a little bit because he figures that some of the honors are in Jon's hand. That was indeed the case and Adam makes his Tichu call.

On my call, there were three bombs out there. I have: A, KKKxx, 6 card bomb, a 6 and a 2. Thankfully Jon wishes the two out of my hand. I play my Ace which Jon Dragons. I consider bombing it but wait. Now I have to worry about is playing a six. But Jon leads a low single and, surprisingly enough, my six won that round! I play my full house and bomb it. Ed now steps up to the plate and goes for the one/two. He bombs a round but Jon over-bombs it. However, he didn't need to worry about it because he still went out second.

This next game evens out the karma I suppose. But I protest calling it an official game! For some unspecified reason... Can't let the other team win now, can we?

The 42 group is the only group still active during lunch at work. So I play with them unless it is Tuesday and Tichu makes. Our team was down 0/4. Then we slowly fought our way to 4/4. And I get the following hand: 6:6 5:5 2:2 0:0 6:4 and two low tiles (maybe one was 5:1). I think about for for a while. And then I decide to plunge. This is a three mark bid where you have four or more doubles and your partner calls trump and leads. My partner perks up and bumps the bid up to four marks because he has the remaining 3 doubles and something to transfer the lead to me. Kinda flawed in a way since the game is played to seven marks.

I have also seen people overbid when they are behind just to determine the trump suit. And then get set because they have a poor hand.

Whoever says form does not follow function, meet Mr. Sour-Shark...

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Sigh, my neighbor is leaving... He and I are the only original homeowners in our neighborhood. Turn-over is very high around here. I am definitely worrying about who is going to buy the house. All I need is another loud and obnoxious dog barking at all hours of the day.

Gah! I tried to search for the house on the realtor's site and failed. What an awful site under firefox. And I love this error message: "Your search returned 201 or more results, which is over the limit of 200 for this service. Please alter your criteria to limit your results to 200 or fewer records". But I found it. I wonder how long that link will last... Nope. Not long at all: "There is a problem accessing this site through the requested URL. Please try again through an authorized URL". Image wanting to link to a web site...

This is my best pizza yet. For toppings, I went South of the border: taco seasoned ground beef, H.E.B. roasted salsa, black beans, roasted poblano peppers, roasted jalapeño peppers, cooked onions, Monterey cheese, and topped with Crema Mexicana Agria.

The next time, I am going to try Japanese curry sauce, pork roast, and vegetables...

The group decided to play at the Lutheran Church. This is a very tiny course which has poison ivy in the brush. Fortunately, the poison ivy dies down in the winter. But the course is still tiny. John and I drove down early to practice. We played the nine holes before everyone else arrived. I was on fire and birdied 4 of the holes for a score of 24. John was still cold at 31.

Unfortunately, it started mist raining at 10. The juniper trees were full of pollen. Whenever someone hit a tree with a disc, you could see a puff of pollen blow out. I definitely did not help to retrieve those discs! Poor Curt was having an allergy attack as well. I know how he feels...

We normally play 27 holes (or three times around) at this course. But the cold and the rain got to us and we aborted early to find something to eat. We decided to have breakfast at the Village Inn which is a Denny's competitor. Service there was incredibly slow and I doubt any of us will go back there again.

Today was absolutely beautiful out. The sky was cloudless and the temperature was 80 degrees. It felt like it was the beginning of summer. Even though it was January. Adam, Rehana, and I played the winter course of Old Settlers. I need to get a more official layout of this course.

It looks like another tree was downed during the recent rain. It is such a shame. That tree will never be replaced. I know that one of our groups states goals is to "cut all the trees down one disc throw at a time", but still... Trees have character. Barren land, not so much...

Afterwards, I really regretted playing. My allergies kicked into full gear. You can't live here long before succumbing to allergies.

Shogun

Mike brought Shogun with him. Which is the re-themed Wallenstein game. Instead of the theme of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), it is set in feudal Japan during the Sengoku period (approx 1467-1573). A much better theme in my opinion. And the artwork is much better as well. The only change to the game is the introduction of bidding for turn order and special power cards. The special powers are not too outrageous. They are +1 money, +1 rice, +1 attack, +1 defense, or buy 6 armies for 3 dollars. Definitely a better game than Wallenstein. And one that I am thinking of trading up. Now if I could only convince Dan to paint me some samurai miniatures...

Tichu

While we waited for Rehana to pick Adam up, we play some Tichu. And boy what a blow-out it was. We had all of the honors. On the first hand, I had the Mahjong and random-wished Adam's four bomb out. Luckily, I did not guess Jon's three-bomb.

For the first workday of the new year everyone must not be booked with meetings. The call to Tichu started at 9am and within 10 minutes, everyone had responded in the positive. Woo woo!

There were lots of bombs to start out with in the first three hands. For my Tichu call, I took a risk. Jon was down to two cards. I played a single card, Jon was able to play a single and then I took it with an Ace. Next, I decided to play my 7788 as sequential pairs. I should have played them as pairs since I had AAQQ as winners. Adam went over the 7788 and led a single. Ed plays low and lets Jon go out first. If Ed would have played an Ace, I could have got control back with the Dragon and then have made it after that. Sometimes, you need to wreck your hand to help your partner go out first...

Close game though. We won by 10 points!

Our group started the new year out right by playing some disc golf. I had some pretty good timing. I arrived home around 1ish and started a load of laundry. When I was web-surfing, I noticed an email about disc golf at the Rivery at 2pm. It was 1:40 and the laundry was in the dryer, so I ran out to Georgetown.

The weather was nice out and it started to warm up a bit. It seems that we kept of the tradition of throwing discs in trees or water.

Hrm. It looks like someone used a vine to hold a tree back. It must of been in the way of the tee box. Or, it could be a trap waiting to spring on some unsuspecting disc golfer...

Driving back home, I saw a sign that read "end of section where disabled vehicles will be towed." Less than a couple of hundred feet after that sign was a disabled vehicle. Either that person lucked out or pushed it a safe distance past the sign.

WhenI passed through Elgin, Texas. I just had to stop and try some sausages since Elgin makes some famous ones (at least around these parts). I was worried that they would be closed on New Year's Day and I would miss this opportunity (why else would anyone drive out to Elgin?). I am glad that I went, but I do not think that I will make the drive again. Rudy's still has the best sausages (called "hotties". and B-B-Q in general for that matter).