Amun-Re

To start out the night, we played this recent Knizia game. It is pretty sad that I haven’t played it for so long that I needed a rules refresher. And boy was I rusty in what areas to bid for. I settled on the low farmer spot Damanhur while Adam and Doug went for high farmer spots Mendes and Thebes. After my second spot of Kharga (another low farmer spot), my fate was sealed. It was clear to me that I would not be earning much income at all. And I was in a enough of a downward spiral that I could not recover.

My next problem was that I drew many of the different province bonuses but could not use them. Other people were bidding more than I could afford on the spots I needed. So I didn’t score them for the old kingdom. At the end of the game, I had one of every province bonus and could only use two (I traded the others in for one gold each — so sad) because, again, people were bidding high on spots I needed.

I definitely want to play this game again. And soon enough so that I can remember some of the painful lessons that I have just learned.

Hoity Toity

Next up was Hoity Toity. This is a game that I am never fond of playing. After all, it is just a glorified game of Rock/Paper/Scissors that rewards you for guessing different than all of the other players. But its been a while since I have played it last and I was game to try it again.

And, of course, I was not guessing differently than everyone else. I would thief at the auction house and someone else would pick thief as well. Or, when I wanted to go to one of the places and be alone, all five people would pick that place. Sigh. In the end, I was able to get the biggest art display. But I was too far away from the leaders to win. I only moved into second to last place.

Tichu

Ahh, Tichu. I can’t get enough of this game. And, with Adam leaving, I am going to need to overdose on it because, when he is gone, the chances that I will play this game are going to be diminished.

Somehow, I even like this game when I get terrible card distributions. Tonight, I had two hands with an Ace and one hand with three Aces and the Phoenix. And, on what would be my best hand of the night, Adam made a random Ace wish. Which made me not call Tichu (the Tichu call would already be risky enough with a low trip and a medium sequential-pair). But, I got my karmic-revenge! On the next hand, Adam again made an Ace wish which hurt his partner. Jon then calls Tichu because there is one less Ace out there. Jon also had a four bomb but was still in trouble. I had to use my five bomb (passed to me by Adam) to stop Adam from going out first.

Our team was able to stop Adam’s first Grand Tichu call because I misplayed a straight. It was not a valid five card straight. And Adam could not deal with the resulting single card onslaught.

Mini-Bridge

Rehana still had not show up to drive Adam home. So Adam dealt out a hand of mini-bridge. It’s sad that Adam is leaving. Because he will not have enough time to convert Jon and myself to bridge players. Rehana then showed up just as Adam finished dealing the cards out. So we called out to her to come play bridge with us. The points turned out to be: Jon (11), Adam (9), Mark (12), Rehana (8). So I won the bidding and Jon tabled his hand. I decided to make Hearts trump and go for the minimum number of tricks (8). You can see Rehana’s opening play of the eight of clubs. Which I lost to Adam’s Ace(?) after I ducked. I lost a couple more tricks. Including one winning low Spade trick when Rehana trumped it. Fortunately, when there were eight tricks left, I was able to get control and run the Hearts out. The remaining Hearts were split well for me to pull this off.