November 2007 Archives

When I arrived, the guys were already playing Mhing. No problem: I dealt myself in and joined the game. It's flexible that way... Didn't win the first hand, obviously, but in the second, I got out on what, fourth or fifth card. Getting three jokers in the deal sure helps. My hand was a true chicken hand, no points except one credit from a flower. Mhing is always fun (which is why I've rated it 10 in Geek). We played few more rounds in the end of the evening.

We played eight rounds of Slovenian Tarok. Some of it not very interesting, some of it rather delicious! In the second to last round I had a pretty good support hand: three kings, so likely to be called as a partner, plenty of courts and low on trumps. As I expected, Hannu called me and we played pretty well together. Great was our despair when we found out we were one point short... Well, still, that was only -42 points - earlier I bidded up an absolute crap hand and scored -130. Just had to try, you know!

The last round was particularly interesting: I had a hand full of court cards (though just one king) and three taroks: XX, XXI and the Fool. Interesting hand, but the lack of trumps meant trouble as a declarer. Tapani called the game and chose my club king for his partner. I announced trula and as a forehand opened with XX. Tapani thought about it for a while and played his Pagat under it. His hand was an excellent compliment to mine, as it had about ten trumps out of the twelve cards, but not many points. We scored an pleasant 124 points - 20 for game, 23 for points and 20 for announced trula, doubled for the radli.

Well, the end results were still rather dismal. Tapani won: -103 points. Sami had -104, making it an annoyingly close finish (had we rounded to nearest five like people usually I do, it would've been a tie at -105). Hannu had -440 and I held the rear with -487. That included -140 for a boneheaded misére hand failed on third trick. Still, great fun. One thing is sure: if I include an example score sheet for Slovenian Tarok in my book, it's going to be something realistic like this and not like the one on John McLeod's site.

(Added: This was my first game with my Austrian pack from Piatnik. It's a gorgeous thing and my new favourite pack: pretty and quite functional, too. No indices, but otherwise it's very, very cool.)

Ottocento was a blast after the negative scores of Slovenian game. There's no way to lose points, that's the key, and plenty of ways to score. First round was ok, not bad for either side: we were behind 172-267. Then hell broke lose. After second hand, we were already leading 490-339, after scoring 96 points in cricches and 150 for sequenzas. Then came the thundering, roaring third round, where Sami had a divine hand of cards with decent support for me and we won 1100-389! The last round scored 610-50 - 206 points for cricches, 310 points for sequenzas, 84 points for cards and the last trick (out of 99 possible) and ten points for one sequenza in my hand... Amazing. A question remains: is Ottocento lottery, or did we play well? We sure had excellent cards.

Right now it feels like luck plays a major role in Ottocento. Getting the Matto (Fool) and Bégato (pagat) is important as they work as wild cards in the scoring. Winning Matto is impossible: you either get it or not. That makes winning Bégato very important - there's skill that may cause a huge swing in points, and the side who already has the Matto has a lot more to gain... Anyway, I'm willing to think the strong luck element I get in Ottocento is really caused by lack of skill. There's definitely enough to think about in the scoring!

I'm definitely interested in playing the game more (and trying the Bolognese three-player game Terziglio - that includes simple bidding to become a declarer, a rare thing in Italian tarocco). The cheat sheets I made showing the key cards made the game easier to learn, yet the pack offers plenty of challenges and a complete full-pack cheat sheet wouldn't be overkill, I'm afraid. As it is, even telling apart swords and batons can be hard for unaccustomed players, not to mention making sense of the gridwork in the 8s, 9s and 10s of those suits.

Next week, if the gods of DHL are in favour of us mere mortals, we shall play Agricola.

We started the session with Race for the Galaxy. Our game took something like 40 minutes this time, so it's getting faster, perhaps. I went with the novelty goods, as my start cards were bent that way. I got a pretty good engine going there, with Consume: Trade producing a hefty pile of cards and some points.

In the end, I wasn't effective enough. Olli's mixed strategy went faster and he finished the game when I was at ten cards. I got one six-point development in the game and had another in my hand waiting to be played. One more round and I would've won, I think, as I only lost by two points.

Canal Mania was next. We had five players, the maximum. It worked well, though there was a bit too much downtime, so in the future, I'll probably prefer four - or five, if everybody plays fast. The turns itself aren't that long, after all.

Canal Mania is a railroad game in water, that is players build canals in pre-railroad England and ship goods to score points. The routebuilding is interesting, as players don't have liberty to do what they want: canals are built based on contracts that list the termini. Sometimes there are possibilities or requirements of including town or two in the canal, but there are also tile limits, which make lengthy detours impossible.

The building is based on building cards: either you build as much as you want or you take three cards from five face up cards. There are locks and stretches for normal ground and aqueducts and tunnels for higher ground: the basic idea is that two adjacent tiles must be different. Locks, aqueducts and tunnels are generally slightly or a lot harder to build than stretches and are also worth points.

Goods move between towns - there are no target towns like in Age of Steam, but instead you can take any good and ship it anywhere, scoring one point per town as long as you own the last canal section the good travels and the route doesn't involve two towns of the same colour. That restricts the movement a lot.

It was fun. The game moves fast - or would move with fast players - and there's some good excitement about it. Choosing between building or collecting more build cards is fun and there are generally more things you'd like to do than you can. Getting goods on board and moving them is interesting and the end game is pretty good as well. All in all, pretty good game.

Right now my rating is a solid eight. If the game doesn't get any faster and remains a two-hour game, expect a lower rating and a sold game. If the game could consistently be played in 90 minutes, a rating of nine wouldn't be impossible. We'll have to see about it. If you have any experience about this, drop a comment.

(Note: the picture you see in this entry was taken with my phone camera. Not bad, unless you take a closer look. But overall, I'd say it's an improvement to having no pictures at all. It isn't quite as easy a process as it should be - for some reason, Movable Type wasn't able to create a thumbnail of the picture and the memory card is hard to remove from my phone - but you can expect a picture every now and then!)

Nooa is the cutest little gamer. He just loves to play with game boxes, trying to open them. His eyes just light up whenever he sees game boxes - particularly when I get some games in mail and there's a bunch of games lying on the floor, he'll go crazy. I'm wondering what's going to happen when our 900 euro game order arrives... He'll go completely bonkers, I believe.

Nooa also understands the word "lautapeli" (board game in Finnish). I was talking about games with Johanna, when Nooa jumped up, ran to the closet where I keep my games. I opened the door and he went and got Funny Fishing out - I keep it low in the closet so Nooa can reach it. He examined the pieces a bit, then promptly forgot about it.

Later I got him to collect the pieces and pack the game up. He closed the box (he still needs some practise with that, his style is cringe-inducing) and then went to put the game back to the closet - the game has a special spot there, Nooa will always put it in the right place (that's the thing with one-year olds, for them things belong to a certain place and they'll make sure everything's in the right place, most of the time...). Such a cute little gamer!

Yesterday's game session put quality over quantity. I spent two hours playing 1960 with Sami; this included the rules explanation (15 minutes of that, 1 hour 45 minutes of game). I took Nixon and campaigned against Sami's JFK.

I had told Sami that the endorsements were important and as a result, he beat me out of the issue track on most turns. He got endorsements pretty much everywhere and ruled the momentum. In the end, he didn't get a single state from the endorsements, but they did keep me busy chasing futile situations - I just couldn't let him have all those heavy midwest states without struggle. So, he did benefit a lot from the endorsements, I believe.

West was all mine in the end and most of the time during the game - JFK attacked California on his last move, and that's all he did in the west. South was mostly Kennedy, though I did the the Unpledged Electors in and they wiped out all those states. Midwest had lot of struggle, but was mostly Kennedy in the end. East was the biggest battleground: I was able to gather momentum there, but in the end JFK ruled most of the east as well. Debate was pure slaughter, JFK won each and every issue. In the end, JFK got 273 votes, while Nixon had 235.

What a game. There was a constant lack of time, I wanted to play all those lovely events, while using all the campaign points, too! Media seemed a tad useless, perhaps, while the issues seemed to be very, very important. Well, I did use media well with the World Series card, but that was pretty much it. There were so many things I would've wanted to do... which is of course a sign of a good game. I'm definitely looking forward to playing this again. I'm curious to see how different the game is when you're playing Kennedy.

Sami wanted to play Ubongo Extrem badly and I certainly didn't mind. We recruited Olli to join us. We had time for two games, which took about 30-40 minutes. The second game was played at rather snappy speed so we could finish it before Sami had to leave.

It's good. I particularly enjoy the new scoring system: it takes the focus and puts it on the actual play. The scoring, based on drawing gems from the bag, is simple and works well. In the first game, I might've done better had I drawn better gems from the bag, but then again, Sami who won did get more than his fair share of first solver gems.

The timer is fairly long, perhaps too long, especially for the three-tile puzzles. We tried few four-tile puzzles too and while those are much harder, someone was always able to finish in time. Not everybody everytime, though, and without the longer timer there would've been rounds without a winner. So, I suppose the difficulty level is alright. At home, I would probably use the faster timer from basic Ubongo with the three-tile puzzles.

It was fun, anyway, and Extrem is my favourite game in the Ubongo series.

Maik Hennebach's The two player game and a look under the hood is an excellent review of Agricola. It describes the game well and is entertaining to read; all in all, it's one of the very best board game reviews I've ever read.

I picked up Ubongo Extrem from the post office today. It's rather neat! The basic idea remains, but the puzzles are now much harder! The tiles are made of small hexagons, three to five per tile on most tiles. Three-tile puzzles are still fairly simple, but the four-tile puzzles are now downright fiendish. Even the most experienced Ubongo players should find them hard enough!

The scoring is simplified and I think it's better than before. There are four kinds of gems, worth 1, 2, 3 and 4 points. Each player who finishes in time gets a random gem from the bag. The fastest solver gets an additional gem worth 3 points and the second fastest solver gets a 1-point gem. That way in a close game anybody can win, but someone who can consistently solve the puzzles fast will get a big advantage in the scoring. I find the scoring simple and efficient.

I'm definitely looking forward to playing this game. I noticed Ted Alspach says on the Geek he's not going back to basic Ubongo - that's some praise.

A review in Finnish of Just 4 Fun.

Just 4 Fun by Jürgen P. Grunau is a spin on classic Connect 4. Players try to create a line of their tokens on the board by playing cards whose sum matches a square on the board. It takes quite a bit of counting to get through this game! There can be multiple tokens on each square: majority wins the square, and if you get two more than anybody else, you can lock the square for you. Get four in line and you win.

The idea is super bland, as is the game art. I mean, given a description of the game, one would easily think that the game just cannot be good. To be honest, it isn't, but it isn't bad either. Actually, I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it, and some of the comments on Geek seem to echo my feelings: this game can actually be fun.

Still, my recommendation for gamers is simple: avoid. There's nothing for you here. If you're, however, looking for a game that's dead simple and don't mind the maths (or even actively look something educational), Just 4 Fun might be the game for you. Even still, there are better games around.

I don't think I can help it: I can't wait for the English edition of Agricola to come out. All the talk of expensive euros and uncertain schedules, and all that time I could be happily playing the game with a German edition. After all, it is an excellent game and right now I have good opportunities to play games: Agricola is perfectly compatible with my Thursday sessions.

Besides, if and when the English edition comes out and I'll buy that, there's always a chance I can sell the German edition. If the English edition is $70, with the weak dollar that'll probably make 60 € or so - perhaps someone will rather buy a 20 € German edition from me? That's my plan.

Good games today: three rounds of Race for the Galaxy and one Fairy Tale. That was all we could manage: it's slow going with new players. Our games took 45 minutes, 45 minutes and 30 minutes. Based on that, I'd say 20 minutes is doable with experienced players.

It's good, it's darn good and without a doubt the best game of the year (and probably last year, too). I once said, when asked for my ideal game, that something with a science fiction theme, quick playing time and multi-use cards. Well, this is it. Ideal? I don't know, but it's scratching so many itches I can't count them all.

We had three players once, four players twice - no notable difference. There's a difference between newbies and experienced players, though: the first ask many questions and have to be reminded to choose their next turn actions. Experienced players play and when they are finished, they start choosing what to do next turn. I prefer latter, and this is indeed the only fault in Race for the Galaxy: it is quite confusing for newbies, there are just too many moving parts I guess. I don't know, really, because I find it all rather straightforward.

Anyway, I'm willing to bear the newbies, but I'm also really looking forward to playing this with folks who know the game and can play fast. That's right now my idea of gaming heaven... There's just so much to try and explore. Today I had excellent success with alien technology, despite a slow start and absolutely no consuming during the whole game (few very fruitful trades, though).

I got my copy of Race for the Galaxy yesterday. It looks pretty nifty, though the art is perhaps a bit dark. Then again, I suppose it is dark in space... I'm glad the cards are of decent size, so they work well with card protectors - I'm hoping to play the game that much. Fortunately tomorrow is Thursday and our Thursday games - I wouldn't mind playing Race and nothing else.

1960: The Making of the President arrived in the same box - and made the box surprisingly heavy. And it's not the game in general, but just the board: the game has one of the heaviest boards I've met. The components are generally pretty nifty, I think.

Originally I wanted to buy Twilight Struggle, but the first batch in Lautapelit.fi was sold out before I got it, and then I just never bought it. Then arrived 1960, which seemed a bit more interesting. I read about it more, as I wrote an article on the Lautapelit.fi web site about it and that, basically, sealed the deal - I decided to add it to my order.

Well, the game sure looks good and seems mechanically sound. I'm quite interested in trying this one out, maybe next week?

I also got Canal Mania, which I bought used. I paid too much for it in an auction, my initial bid remained unchallenged, but at least the money went to a nice guy (who let me crash at his home during Helcon), so I don't mind. My geekbuddies either like the game somewhat or think it's a bit of disappointment, so we'll see, but it looks pretty nice and I wouldn't mind having a slightly more forgiving version of Age of Steam.

I also got a new cell phone - Nokia 3110 classic - to replace my N-Gage QD that had started to fall apart after three years of use (and a year of baby chewing on it). The new one looks nice, but most importantly, it has a camera, so perhaps, if the camera takes good enough pictures and moving them to the computer is easy enough, you'll start seeing a bit more pictures.

Funny fact about Railroad Tycoon: apparently the title is something of an anachronism, as according to Word Detective, the word tycoon wasn't used in business sense until after World War I.

Review of Tower of Babel in Finnish.

Tower of Babel is a clever area majority game designed by Reiner Knizia. Players try to complete the eight wonders of the world, including the Tower of Babel from the title. Alas, not all of them will be done by the end. Players try to get the majority of the markers in each wonder that is finished.

The game's published by Hans im Glück, which says something about the quality. The game looks neat, if a bit bland. The components are good, even though they include some rather pointless bits of wood used to denote the turn order - which goes clockwise around the table and remains the same each round. Surely the players are able to remember that?

Together we're strong

The way the wonders are built is cooperation! Each wonder consists of three subprojects. Each has a colour and a size. To build the subproject, you need to play the right number of cards of the right colour. The player who initiates the building doesn't have to provide all the cards: everybody offers a number of cards and the builder chooses whose cards are included. He can add his own or build solo, but he doesn't have to.

Each card is one marker on the wonder: the player with most markers scores the biggest points when (if) the wonder is done. The builder gets the project chit - a collection of several chits of the same colour is worth a lot of points and is a rather significant source of points.

If your cards aren't accepted, you get compensation victory points, one for each card. Not bad! There's also the trade card: include it in your offer and if your cards are accepted, the builder gets the markers from your cards and you get the chit. This makes the offers more interesting, particularly as the builder can only accept one offer with a trade card.

Clever ideas

The game end when one of the colours runs out from the board. This, combined with the need to collect chits, makes the end game dynamic and exciting. It works rather well. I've played with three and four and think both work - with five, there's probably too many cards around. Many people seem to recommend avoiding the game with five.

I like the challenges offered by the system. Trying to maximise your presence on board, while collecting the building chits and making sure the wonders you have built won't get finished too soon or too late, that's a challenge. As a builder, which wonder you want to build? Which chits to collect? There are plenty of interesting decisions to make. Sometimes you suffer from the lack of cards of certain colour - there's some luck effect there, but it's not a game-breaker. Besides, Tower of Babel is a reasonably swift game, which is forgiving.

I've skipped the bonus cards in my review, and I recommend you do the same when you play the game. I've played once with the bonus cards that award rewards for the players who finish the wonders, and I feel they add nothing to the game - instead, they make the game worse in my opinion. According to the legends, the cards weren't a part of Knizia's original design anyway, but even if they were, I think the game is better without them.

Tower of Babel is a subtle game that probably benefits from repeated plays. I enjoy the game, but in the end it's perhaps a bit too subtle: I don't feel the need to get it on the table. If someone suggests this, I'll play, no doubt about it, but as it is, I'm trading my copy away.

Another Helcon is gone (well, they're still playing, but I'm already back home) and boy, it was a good one! We started games on the train to Helsinki. Robert managed to get himself to the wrong train (for some reason there were to trains to Helsinki within three minutes), but I had Olli and Sami with me, so we could play. I had hoped to play something with Robert already on the train station - thanks to a holiday bus schedules, we both had to arrive quite early - but a train station full of drunks just isn't the best possible environment.

It's been a while since I last played Sticheln - so that's what we played. Olli had some limited experience and hadn't really made up his mind yet, but seemed to like it better now. Sticheln is good - as long as you stick to three players. We played six rounds and while I played some weaker rounds, we managed to beat Olli back from the top and I was able to take over. Ain't completely rusty!

We squeezed in a quick San Juan before the train got to Helsinki. A good game, which I lost because I finished it too quickly. Sometimes rushing isn't the best strategy, especially if you're missing a critical big building.

In Helsinki we met with Robert and made our way to the location. It's been cold, and it's started to snow, too. So, there we were, waiting for the doors to open with rather wet snow falling over us... Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long. After a quick trip to a close grocery store, I was ready for action.

While waiting for the tournament to start, I got into a game of the Holy Grail, I mean Race for the Galaxy. It was somewhat rushed, we had 45 minutes and that's what the game took. I think I figured it out pretty well, but others had more trouble with it, and I don't think it was a particularly pleasant first touch.

I loved the game, though, and I'm rather glad I've got my copy coming, hopefully early next week. The game rocks. It's like San Juan, only better. The simultaneous action selection works well, I like the consume mechanic, the card selection is interesting and, simply put, the game was fun! I got the New Sparta as my starting world and that settled my strategy: I got the Galactic Imperium and started exploring like crazy for rebel worlds to beat down. Add to that the New Galactic Order that rewards for military power and it works like a charm... or would've, had Ansi not hoarded rebel worlds when he noticed (or, when I was excitedly blabbing out about my delightful discovery) that I needed them.

Game of the year, hands down. It's seriously good. There's a downside, no doubt about it, though - the game is a bit complex. I can see trouble ahead: the game seems designed to be played fast and I like that, but playing with newbies or simply slower people who'd like to take one phase at a time just might be too much for my nerves. Give me experienced opponents and I'll pick Race for the Galaxy over San Juan every time, but with newbies, I don't know.

Then, the tournament. It was a team tournament with three-players teams and three rounds. On each round, the teams first voted which games they wanted to include and then put the chosen games in order of preference. Each team got three games to play and could assign team members to different games any way they wish. I instantly recruited Robert to my team and when I heard Olli was coming too, I got him as the third member of our team, Tampere Avengers.

First round was light games. I got into Turbo Taxi, our other games were San Juan (Robert, our expert, took that and won) and Fairy Tale (Olli played this one, enjoyed the very competitive and brutal game a lot, but didn't win). I believe I'm pretty good at Turbo Taxi, but still lost my game. It was tough. Stefu won, and I know he's good... I hadn't practised in a long time, so I was perhaps a bit rusty.

Still, it was a major embarrassment. I should've done better! Losing was completely out of question, with two (or one) newbies in the game! I don't know if I like the game anymore... Well, it's not bad, but it's definitely not my favourite speed game, never was - it's just not as much fun as some other games. I think I somewhat prefer slightly slower games: Flix Mix is a good example of a speed game with a slower pace, as is Sunda to Sahul - these two are my favourites, actually.

Next round was medium-length games. Robert got Carcassonne and lost that, not a surprise really, while Olli tackled Einfach Genial with little success. I got Industrial Waste. It was a curious game: it was the longest game of the round and probably the longest game of Industrial Waste I've played. I drew a disaster after disaster from the pack. Mankka, Stefu's brother, was particularly badly hurt as he was most of the time on the red. He ended up, what, 40 millions in debt - yet still got a pretty decent amount of points.

I was second: I only had to take one loan, which I paid back on the last round. I didn't have enough money, so perhaps more aggressive lending could've helped a bit, but Marko who won, did fairly well without taking any loans at all, so beating him would've been hard. A good, tough match that dragged out perhaps a tad too much, showing the ugly side of Industrial Waste - and a probable reason why it isn't a top-tier game. I still think Rio Grande should re-issue it as Al Gore's Industrial Waste.

Last round had me playing Amun-Re, which I wouldn't have chosen to play otherwise... I did my basic standard Amun-Re performance: two pyramid sets, some bonus points, but nothing big and ended last. It was a pleasure to see Petri, one of the better board gamers in Finland, play. Robert played Tigris & Euphrates and won, Olli struggled a long game of Imperial and won, too, I think. Thanks to the somewhat better last round, our team ended up, I believe, fifth out of eight teams. Not bad, but not quite what I believed we could do...

The tournament was quite good. It would've needed a computer to do the set up and there were some kinks in the selection system, but it worked out pretty well in the end. We got mostly the games we wanted, with some disappointments. Would I participate again? I don't know - perhaps I would've preferred to play something else. Turbo Taxi and Industrial Waste were good games and tough fights, but the Amun-Re just wasn't much fun. Also, the tournament would've been more fun if people would've known the games - now each game had newbies in it, which sort of removes some of the attraction of the tournament setting.

After a late lunch break - pizza from the grocery store, no expensive two-hour restaurant meals this time - I was more than happy to join Tommy in Agricola. I've been skipping the Essen stuff, mostly, but this one did pique my interest. For a reason, it seems! We quickly found out we had a full set of five players and a table full of cardboard: while Agricola is not a big league table hog, it still takes a large table to play it.

Agricola is a "life game": each player starts with two family members in a two-room wooden hut and tries to make a living. The family grows, builds a bigger house, farms the land, raises animals and tries to get enough food to feed all hungry mouths. Each turn each family member gets to do one action: typically actions either get more basic resources or use them to do something useful.

We played the basic, family game without any of the special cards. Apparently they give the game more flavour, but it's quite good even without them. Our first game took two hours, including plenty of reading rules and we did get quite a few things wrong, making the game slightly harder than it should've been. Still, it seemed interesting and most of us wanted to play a second round, this time with what I think were the correct rules.

The game sure flowed much faster. We finished the second game, with four players, in about 70 minutes. Not bad! The game is basically resource gathering and there are plenty of things to do, yet little time to do them. There's no direct player interaction, except for the competition over the actions, which are a scarce resource if any. I like the scoring: it's quite intuitive, as you get points for everything. It's also fairly clever: most things give you negative points if you don't do them, so you'll have to balance doing a little bit of everything and doing plenty of something, as if you only do a little bit of everything, nothing's going to get you lots of points.

So, yes, I love it. After that first game the game jumped from "hmm, this seems interesting" to "must buy as soon as the English edition arrives". I'm waiting - there's just too much German. It's not that bad, at least except for the cards, but still I'd rather wait. Having an English edition makes it just that much easier for the other people I'd play with, even if I can cope with the German (I've realized I've learnt quite a bit of German).

I'd also like to add that Agricola does have elements that can cause disturbing table talk, particularly the bits about having babies and perhaps the bits about animals as well... So yeah, we did have a blast playing this. I don't remember when playing a game was this much fun. And it's not just fun, but there's really a sound, mechanically solid game underneath that flavour and theme... Agricola is definitely high on my list of well-themed games.

Funny fact: Agricola - Latin for farmer - is also the name of the bishop of Turku from 16th century, who translated the Bible to Finnish and thus created the written Finnish language. Mikael Agricola was no farmer himself, but got his name from his father, who was. He's famous enough to be the first thing that pops into the heads of Finnish gamers who hear about this game.

I had organized a card game session at the end of the evening. We played Hungarian Tarokk and Doppelkopf. Tarokk was good as ever, though it was obvious it would take a lot more plays to make it more interesting. New players are simply too timid to bid, even with really, really good cards, and that somewhat hurts the game. I can understand that, and I think I'll need to encourage people to bid more, as winning the games as a declarer really isn't that hard (and losing is a good way to learn).

Doppelkopf was a new experience for me. Markku aka JoeLamer had played the game against computer opponents and in BSW. It's a tricky game: basically it's a standard ace-ten game played on a double 24-card pack, but the trumps have been complicated a lot. Ten of hearts is the highest trump, then queens, then jacks, then the rest of the diamonds in normal order. Plenty of trumps, as each card is doubled!

It takes lots of play to get one's head around all of this. I am humbled by the fact that Doppelkopf is very popular in Germany and played as a social game: nobody, and I mean nobody, plays games this complex in Finland for fun (I'm not counting Bridge, which is in any case pretty simple except for the bidding and perhaps the scoring). Talk about card game culture! We played three hands and each time I found myself holding one of the club queens, which made me part of the declarer's team, so to speak.

Doppelkopf was fun, but I don't think I'm playing it a lot. It's just too darn complex and would require lots of repeat play. I suppose it could be a fun way to spend few hours with three like-minded individuals as that would give enough time to get one's head around the game, but otherwise... well, there are games that are less complicated and pretty much just as entertaining.

As promised to Iain (see his blog), I present you the Funny Fisherman:

Our Thursday sessions continue to be quiet. Well, three is enough! We started with Fairy Tale, as usual, but this game was unusual! I was doing well, I got all three of those eight-point "get two of the other suits" cards and got them fulfilled, too. Well, Sami did close down my critical cards, but on the last round I got the black card that opens two, so I was set to score big.

But no. Mari had a hunt card saved for the last card of the game, thinking that we would try to do something clever. Indeed - both me and Sami had saved a black card for the end. That single hunt spoiled my game: I would've won with more than 40 points, but thanks to the two cards being closed, I got, what, 16 points. Nice move!

Playing Modern Art against newbies is a good way to boost winning percentages... I did quite well, I think, and my opponents didn't make newbie blunders, at least not fatal ones, so I think I can take some credit for winning the game. Fun game, even with three.

We had four players for a moment, so it was time to play few hands of Hungarian Tarokk. Well, two, to be exact. Once again I had to explain tarot to someone with little or no trick-taking experience - that takes some adjusting to! We managed to play two hands and I was able to make an utter fool of me by playing recklessly... Well, more of this to come in Helcon, and the Hungarian game seems to me to be the best tarot game so far.

I've been wanting to play Settlers of Catan for a while now. That may have been affected by Markus Nuopponen's tales from the championships: he was the World Champion last year and this year placed third, I think, and he posted a really interesting overview of the tournament - if you can read Finnish, I recommend reading it. (Here's a picture of Markus at the World Championships)

When I found out that neither Mari or Hannu had ever played Catan, that was all I needed. The starting setup had very little wood, so the game was a bit slow at first. I got obscenely lucky die rolls in the beginning, but had a real struggle in the end to get rock, as I didn't produce any. Well, two towns on a sheep hex number 6 and a sheep harbour certainly helped that... In the end I won, as I had the best starting setup and Mari and Hannu didn't work hard enough to stop me from winning. Of course, grabbing the longest road from me wasn't that easy, with very little wood around. Obviously it's also a question of experience: Catan has its own subtleties. It's a good game, and I think I'd like to play a bit more of it, too - while I've kept statistics (almost seven years now), I've only played eight games.

Tomorrow I'll head to Helcon: expect reports on Monday, if not before.