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Thursday session: Tower of Babel, Razzia!
We had a slow Thursday session, just four players — the university Autumn break is probably slowing things down a bit. Last week was quiet as well, I hear. Maybe next week’ll be better? Tower of Babel… Well, it’s a good game. My play sucked, I thought I was doing well but I wasn’t, but…
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Two-player card games: Schnapsen, WYSIWYG
I made a return to Schnapsen — I had tried it once before, about five years ago. It’s an extremely tight two-handed trick-taker. It’s an ace-ten game, played with a 20-card pack with all the non-scoring cards removed. It seems to be a game of memory: you must remember your own points and it certainly…
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Thursday session: Tarot, Ubongo
Yesterday’s session started with a quick round of Larry Levy’s WYSIWYG. It’s an advanced version of German Whist, a trick-taking game for two players. Players bid for the right to become a declarer and choose trumps. In the first phase players collect new cards to fill their hands with (two cards are shown, winner of…
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Thursday session: Tarot, Jass
First game today was Jass. Since there are at least 70 variations of Jass, it’s probably best to be more precise: we played Molotow Jass. Molotow is the four-player variant of Mittlere Jass. Plus-Minus Jass is another variant of Mittlere Jass and Cosmic Eidex is a variant of Plus-Minus Jass. Still with me? So, it’s…
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Thursday session: Ottocento, Dobbm
After the mandatory Fairy Tale rounds (which prove that I can only win when paired up with someone), I got a group playing Ottocento or Tarocco Bolognese. The Bologne Tarot is a curious game, played with a special pack of 62 cards. The trumps are a bit different: there are, for example, four moors, which…
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Board game club: Age of Steam, End of the Triumvirate
It’s been a while since my last visit to the board game club. Yesterday I was able to go, and had enough time, too, to play some heavier games. We started with Age of Steam: Mississippi Steamboats, one of Ted Alspach’s expansions. It’s a long and narrow board, split by the big river. Urbanization doesn’t…
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Thursday session: camels and cards
Another Thursday session, this time with plenty of people: we had three games running at the same time. It was good, because that meant I was able to skip Bang!. Instead I played Yspahan. The game included two newbies and Olli, who has played about 500 games of the PC version. Now, guess the order?…
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Thursday session: Hart an der Grenze, Funny Fishing, cards
The second Thursday session drew six players, then two latecomers. We could use more, but this was certainly enough to get games going. It was nice to see some new faces. We warmed up with a quick round of Ubongo Mini, which is indeed a rather good for that purpose. My dear friends at Marektoy…
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First Thursday session: Ubongo Mini, cards
I’ve started a new weekly game night. My wife wants me to see other people than her and Nooa, basically. That’s perfectly fine with me! Our first night had a good turnout of seven people, so we got two games going. The other table played Web of Power, Geschenkt and Phoenicia, while our table played…
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Caylus Magna Carta in Jyväskylä
I’m in Jyväskylä now with Nooa, I took the boy to see his grandparents. It’s been a double vacation — Johanna gets some time off as she stayed home, while it’s been pretty lazy for me too, as Nooa has been quite beguiled by Raija and Ismo. No visit without games, right? After we got…