Gulf, Mobile & Ohio is one clever game. We played it yesterday, with four players this time and couple of newbies… My fifth game, already, which is nice, and I’m just about to rate this as a 10. It’s just that damn good. The timing games, juggling into a position to open a good railroad, managing money and points… It’s brilliant, simply put, and the game takes only an hour or less. It’s one of the better Winsome games, by far.

Of course it helps I won… Part of it was a strong move handed to me on a silver platter by my brother (can’t blame him, this isn’t an easy game for a newbie), but also just good play. I think the level of play was overall better than ever before, with more passes and tactical moves like leaving cubes unbuilt. Ville did well, he ended up second. His last turn was nice: he had basically two options, both of which would lead to my inevitable victory and his second place. Pass or build? Doesn’t matter.

Lamarckian Poker: the king of easy-to-carry five-minute fillers. No doubt. I lost a two-player game with four aces.

Gang of Four was good fun, after a smallish break of three years. Tuomo took nice 60 points early on, but proved hard to kill, later winning three consecutive rounds at 96 points. Nice. Pressure made him play better, clearly…