Caylus: In stock

Yep - Fairplay has it, Boulder games... there may be a few others.

Kevin was kind enough to call and order two copies for us (along with Through the Desert and Hansa), word is traveling fast on the Geek and elsewhere. Get your order in for the number three ranked game in the world!

Current top 10 game ranks (according to the 'Geek):

1. Puerto Rico 8.52
2. Euphrat and Tigris 8.28
3. Caylus 8.27
4. Power Grid 8.13
5. Princes of Florence 8.08
6. El Grande 8.05
7. Die Macher 7.97
8. Ra 7.94
9. Age of Steam 7.91
10. Wallenstein 7.90

How many of the top 10 have you played? (I'll have 5 of 10 when Caylus arrives, and 20 of the top 50... all great games)

Remember "Searching for Bobby Fischer"?

Remember the movie, "Searching for Bobby Fischer"?

Chessbase.com linked to an article in the Courier, about Josh Waitzkin, the real-life chess prodigy that many compared to Bobby Fischer. Apparenlty, the 29-year old Josh has not played chess for the last five years, saying "I quit, cold turkey. For two years before that I hadn't been so happy playing the game. It had been a life's work for me between six and 22. A large reason I moved away from chess was because my relationship to the game was a very personal one - it was about internal cultivation, and I was really thrust into the spotlight in a huge way for the last seven years or so of my chess career because of the film. I'm not complaining about it but, slowly and surely, everything became about the glory and about the results, and that really wasn't what I loved about chess."

Josh was the audio commentary on the most recent Chessmaster PC/XBOX game release, and I really enjoyed his tutorials inside the game, Grayson and I both played through them all.

Fascinating article, check it out here.

Polgar sez Blitz Chess = ESPN

Susan Polgar has again appeared on the cover of a major news publication, this time on New York Newsday. Her subject? How Blitz Chess can put chess on ESPN and on the public eye. A quote:

"In America, people want action," she said in her accented English. "And they want it now. But chess, if it's promoted in the right way, can be exciting."

Susan is currently the #1 ranked female player in the U.S., and is one of the top players in the world. Here thoughts on the likelyhood of chess being a TV sport are quite interesting. Check them out here.

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By the way, we average around 5 hits a day here at BSC, and we've had quite a few visits recently from someone in Mountain View, California recently, as well as one from Lima, Peru! Thanks for viewing and reading our humble site! (gotta love Google Analytics)

St. Pete: PC

Okay, here's a PC conversion of the excellent boardgame, Saint Petersburg. The Westpark Gamers (a group based out of Munich, Germany) has written this title, and even gone to the trouble to produce a English-language patch.

Westpark Gamers St. Petersburg for the PC

I've played it so much on Brettspielwelt that I don't really need the english patch, but haven't got it to work anyway (not sure what folder to extract it too).

San Juan for PC / Game Art blog

CORRECTED

I love San Juan the card game, and I would play it anytime I am asked. I would recommend always as an option for three players, especially.

I went through a phase last year when I played probably 100 games or so on the computer version of this card game. Unfortunately, there are a few bugs in the game (notably the Poor House does not seem to work). I had posted that these were fixed, but I guess not. Still, game does play well, and AI is very good.

However! There's hope, check out this page: JSANJUAN.

There is a new San Juan site, where a Andre Wichmann has created a San Juan for Java, that appears to be the real deal. I have not been able to get it work on my system yet...

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Lastly, if you have not already seen Mike Doyle's blog, call Mike Doyle's Art Play, you need to check it out. Mike has an excellent blog, focused on his interest in art in games. He a graphic designer by trade, and has made good use of the computer to do some ideas around "republishing" of some games that you will be familiar with. Check out his take on Settlers of Catan.

Diversity in Gaming groups

GOF4 was a demonstration of diversity in gaming gatherings. For example:

* Three different congregations, separated by 80+ miles
* Range of ages, 40+ years (?)
* 47% girls (9 ladies, 10 guys)
* 14 different games played
* Long time serious gamers (Dave, Kevin, Doug, Mike S., Trudy), newbies (Mary, Rosanne, Nikki, Kate, Mike J.), and recent Euro-gamers (Al, Pat, Kim, Ben, Jared, Kyle, Marci, Caleb)
* 2-player abstract, dexterity, cards, city-building/trading, auction/building, area control and train games were all represented

There is no doubt in my mind that the diversity of the players and the games is a key to sustainment of boardgaming as a regular event at get-togethers. The more that you can involve wives, parents, kids, for example, the more the whole family can participate and encourage more play.

German-style games encourages diversity of players, by providing a few key elements:

Most German-style games have building, trading, or auctioning as key elements
Most German-style games are not conflict simulations
Most German-style games do not include elimination of players from play as a goal
Almost all German-style games include excellent quality components (often wood, and usually colorful)

Almost all German-style games can be completed in about 90 minutes
German style games generally have all players involved all the time
Just my thoughts - why do you think these types of games are so successful at our events?

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I'd also like to get your thoughts on a number of other topics, which we can talk about soon. Included in this list are: When shall we have our next event? How do we simplify the scorekeeping? Did we have too many folks, or too few, or just right? Was our event too long? etc. etc.!

Thank you: GOF4

Here are a few additional photos from Saturday's Gathering of Friends 4:Clarks Summit.

Also, I really wanted to say thank you to these folks:

Kevin and Marci: Thank you for helping to make our Gathering a success by helping to spark attendence from Northampton! Thank you too for helping newcomers with a few of the games (Lost Cities, Alhambra, Pente come to mind). Your assistance certainly reduced our stress, and made for a wonderful time. Thanks for encouraging me to play too, Kevin!

Caleb/Doug: Thank you for teaching Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Ticket to Ride and Settlers to all the players! At least 5 or 6 of the friends in your games had never played before, and several of them had never attended an event like this. And you accomodated a great diversity in ages too (Grayson is only 7 and really enjoyed both games!). Big pat on the back for your excellent teaching.

Trudy/Nikki/Rosanne/Pat/Mary/Kate/Kim: Thank you for playing with us, we enjoyed getting the sisters involved in our Gathering, and are very happy that you had so much fun!

Grayson: Good job son, I am glad you had fun, and you were a good sport too -

Tammy: Wonderful job again dear, we all had so much fun and there's no way we'd have as much fun as we did without your excellent hostessing!

Caleb wins GOF4!

Caleb wins Gathering of Friends 4: Clarks Summit!

Caleb scored wins in Chess, Settlers of Catan (6-player), Ticket to Ride (5-player), and the final match of the top four players in Settlers of Catan.

Top 15 Final scores were:

Caleb 62, Jared 44, Doug 36, Kim 28, Dave 23, Al 22, Marci 19, Rosanne 17.5, Kevin 15, Ben 13, Kyle 10, Pat 9, Grayson 8, Mike J 8, Mike S. 6

The 19 friends gathered together played a diverse array of games, including: Puerto Rico, Settlers of Catan, San Juan, Pente, Lost Cities, Ticket to Ride, Ticket to Ride Europe, Through the Desert, St. Petersburg, Fischerandom Chess, Stratego, Pinball Baseball, Scrabble, and Power Grid.

Rules Revised for GOF4

I made some major revisons to the tournament rules for GOF4. The main changes:

* Simplified the "number of players" requirement. Players can now join and form games as they desire, with the only requirement being that they play one 2-player, and one 3-player game at some point. {my thinking here was to encourage some play of the "lighter" games - as they are somewhat less "serious" than the big-boy 4-player games, they might get overlooked in the heat of the tourney} Also, the first 8 games played are scored, with no requirements on the type played. There is an option to omit the first game of the day from scoring if all players agree at the start. {made this change thinking that players that choose chess as their first game, and are unfamiliar with the use of the clock, may want to give it a try first so they are not frustrated when they run out of time in their first game, which happens frequently when introducing players to timed play}

* Eliminated the "swiss" pairing system. Players may play anyone they wish, and are simply encouraged to invite everyone to participate. Game-winner matching is gone.

* Added and removed a few games - Scrabble being added in the 3-player group, and Nexus Ops and Metro being removed.

* Modified the "number of players" requirement. Now you may play games with any number of players. However, points are only scored for the category that the game is in. If fewer than the "category number" of players are playing, the points scored go down to proper level. If more than the recommended number are playing, the maximum scored is at the base category. e.g. A 6-player game of Alhambra still only scores like a 3-player, and a 5-player game of Puerto Rico only scores like a 4-player. {This was done for a couple of reasons: First, because the length of the lighter (3p) games does not increase much with more players - choosing exclusively these games could allow you to race ahead of the players that would chose 4p and 5p games. Second, wanted to allow games to be played with less than the optimal number of players if they wish to give flexibility}

* Added a 6-player option, with points being scored as in a 5-player. Fifth and sixth player score zero points.

* Reduced the points for 5-player wins to 20, and increased the points for a 3rd place finish in a 4-p game to 3. {This was done to incease the attractiveness of the lighter games and 4-player games relative to 5-player. The small change to the 4-player points was made to tighten the range slightly, and give the odd 3rd place finishing player a better chance to recover}

All of these changes were made to reduce bookkeeping, allow players more flexibility in chosing games that they would enjoy, and to accomodate new players by making it easier for them to be paired up for games. The new rules can be accessed here.

Final stages for Gathering of Friends 4

We are in the final stages for our Gathering!

Here are some photos from our game room for the day.