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Gaming year 2002 — the statistical review
I love keeping the statistics for the games I play. I like toying around with the numbers, seeing how they go. Of course, the biggest rewards come when you can make deeper, more complete analysis. Changing of the year is a natural time for that. I can make a fairly complete review of the past…
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Post-Christmas games: Villa Paletti & Scrabble
I went “back home” to visit my parents with Johanna. Games couldn’t be avoided, especially since I had given Villa Paletti to my mother as a Christmas present. It turned out to be a good gift — which was expected, since she has always enjoyed Timpuri, a Finnish variant of Jenga. Well, we played a…
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Christmas Games
While waiting for the gifts, I played some games with my girlfriend Johanna. Because we were spending the Christmas at her parent’s home, we had her old game collection to use: Afrikan tähti (Star of Africa, named after the huge diamond) and Pekingin mysteerit (aka Mysteries of Peking). Afrikan tähti is the best-selling Finnish game…
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BSW Session: Lost Cities, Carcassonne
This was probably the last game session this year… I played few games at the Brettspielwelt, classic BSW games really. First, I played seven hands of Lost Cities, losing most of them. Still, it was pretty fun. At least it didn’t take a long time. Then, I played a two-player game of good old Carcassonne.…
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Tournament systems
I’ve been thinking about the tournaments in the board game club. In 2001, we had a very simple tournament. In our December meeting, we played a four-game tournament and the winner got the prize. This year, a small one-game tournament was played every time and the finals in the December meeting. That was better, but…
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Boardgame club meeting: Puerto Rico, Die Händler, Carcassonne: H&G
The last meeting for this year of the Tampere University board game club was yesterday. We had a nice amount of people playing lots of different games. The Game of the Year -award was given to Puerto Rico (last year’s winner was Carcassonne) and the finals of the Spirit of the Game -tournament was played.…
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Fun and games for Christmas
Another attitude towards games: I had great fun playing Poker with my girlfriend yesterday. We play for Go stones, as I have plenty of those, and the way we play would probably make most Poker experts hilariously insane. Yesterday we tried out a new variant, inspired by a very silly strip poker program in TV.…
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I Do Rule the Ricochet Robot
After 119 more players, I still rule the Ricochet Robot. See for yourself: Scores for 12.12.2002. This is only the first of many victories to come! (But today I screwed up — I found seven move solution, but only after I had spent about 80 seconds doing an 18-move one…)
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Ruling the Ricochet Robot
It’s 9:42 AM in the USA, 190 players have already completed the daily Ricochet Robot puzzle and I’m still number one! I knew I found a good solution (I’d say optimal) and fairly fast, too, but it’s still hard to believe.
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Puerto Rico at BSW
I just played another game of Puerto Rico at the Brettspielwelt. However, it was an exceptional game: it had five players. I’ve only played three 5-player games this far. It was an interesting experience, even though it only reinforced my opinion: Puerto Rico is a four player game. Five players make the game a bit…