June 20 2001 RussCon Report

23 of us played 21 games. Man, we keep getting new people; I can't keep up with 'em all: JimC (not to be confused with go club's Jim C) and TJ. I knew Jim years ago in the sf writers group I used to attend. Daniel's friend Tania came too.

Also, in case you didn't notice the enthusiastic shouts of victory and despairing moans of defeat the past couple weeks, long-lost William is back from the frozen wastes of the north!

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Now playing: William Shakespeare's Memento.

Comicollage: daily ongoing comic jam with 7 artists and no planning ahead! There's a russ strip every Tuesday.

News

This coming Thursday and Friday nights (June 28 & 29) at Cactus Cafe will be performances by Clandestine, my favorite live band. If you're jonesing for Celtic music and want to join me, I'll be eating dinner at Veggie Heaven on the drag across from Dobie Mall around 6 or so Friday, then walking over to the Cactus on campus to get in line.

Remi's heading back east after his 6 month stint in Austin, and has passed Whendy's futons along to Fred.

Game Results

6Nimmt	6	PJ 5 Alex 3 Daniel 0 BobR 0 Dudley -3 Tania -5
Carcassonne	5	Clay 4 JP 2 Jeffles 0 RussW -2 Clayton -4
Can'tStop	3	William 2 JimC -1 TJ -1
Guillotine	5	BobR 4 Daniel 1 Dudley 1 Tania -3 Alex -3
Vampire	5	PJ 4 JeffF 2 RussW 0 Clay -2 Clayton -4
ButtonMen	2	Jeffles 1 JP -1
ZirkusFlohcati	5	JeffF 4 PJ 2 RussW 0 Clay -2 Clayton -4
TajMahal	5	Whendy 4 Bob 2 DaveB 0 Ben -2 Marty -4
EnGarde	2	Clay 1 PJ -1
BigCity	4	Daniel 3 Allen 1 Dudley -1 BobR -3
Letras	3	Allen 2 Bob 0 Dudley -2
Rage	6	Whendy 5 DaveB 3 Ben 1 Bob -1 PJ -3 Marty -5
ModernArt	5	William 4 JP 2 Jeffles 0 JimC -2 TJ -4
Hornochsen	3	RussD 2 Matt -1 PJ -1
TrainsportSwitzerland	4	JeffF 3 RussW 1 RussD -1 Clayton -3
Njet	4	JP 3 William 1 Daniel -1 TJ -3
Guillotine	3	Matt 2 PJ 0 Alex -2
Zero	3	Daniel 2 JP 0 William -2
Traumfabrik	4	JeffF 3 Allen 1 Bob -1 Marty -3
PrincesOfFlorence	3	DaveB 2 BobR 0 RussW -2
Bluff	4	JP 3 PJ 1 William -1 Matt -3

Another Carcassonne loss? Noooo! How can this be!?

It had been a while since we'd played one of the Trainsport games. They are certainly classic train games. I recommend playing them if you haven't.

Princes of Florence... I am enjoying playing this a lot even though I suck at it. I'm not sure it's going to have the staying power that Carcassonne or Web of Power have for me, because PoF just isn't as elegant; by design, it's got lots of different little interacting subsystems. But it's definitely cool and interesting, plus it's pretty. Playing with 3 players again was fun. We need to do a 4-player game now!

A reminder: please write and spell clearly when recording game results, and remember last initials for people with common names, thanks!

Meta Party Game Results

New dude Dudley was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he emailed out:

Hi all,
This was my first russcon, so I called Allen to get some general guidelines for the meta game. His idea was that the meta game should be a result of all the other games, or at least something to make for nice social interaction, and it shouldn't cause Russ too much work at the end of the day.
So here is my meta game. I hope you like it.
As each person enters russcon they receive 5 standard playing cards randomly drawn from a deck. The person with the best poker hand wins. Of course it wouldn't be any fun if you couldn't improve your hand, so here is how you do that. Every time you finish a game you get to see the hands of all the people that you bested, and swap one card with one of them if you desire. At the end of the night the best hand wins. Any ties are broken by a coin toss. When you leave is when your hand is counted.
Example: Suppose that I played game of KuhHandel with the following results.
Clayton 4 William 2 RussD 0 Dudley -2 PJ -4
Clayton can then swap one card with William, RussD, Dudley, OR PJ.
William can then swap one card with RussD, Dudley, OR PJ.
RussD can then swap one card with Dudley OR PJ.
Dudley can then swap one card with PJ.
Russ I am just assuming that you have 3 or 4 decks of cards around. If not I will be happy to bring some.

This turned out to be quite a nice little meta game, although 2 people walked off with my cards apparently. (RussD has let me know he has one set; does anyone else have one?)

JP ended up winning handily with the best poker hand: 5 of a kind (eights). So he is the Meta Party Devil and will email out next week's Meta Game!

Evening's Soundtrack

Garbage, Garbage
King Crimson, Three of a Perfect Pair
The Alan Parsons Project, The Turn Of A Friendly Card
Railroad Jerk, Raise the Plow
Skinny Puppy, Cleans Fold and Manipulate

It's meta!

Ratings

Rank ratings:
 1.0000 Whendy (2 games played)
 0.8571 JeffF (4)
 0.5294 JP (6)
 0.5000 Allen (3)
 0.4545 DaveB (3)
 0.2941 Daniel (5)
 0.2857 William (5)
 0.2692 PJ (8)
 0.2000 RussD (2)
 0.1111 Jeffles (3)
 0.0769 Clay (4)
 0.0714 BobR (4)
 0.0000 Bob (4)
-0.1111 Ben (2)
-0.1765 RussW (5)
-0.1818 Alex (3)
-0.2857 Matt (3)
-0.3571 Dudley (4)
-0.5000 JimC (2)
-0.8889 Tania (2)
-0.8889 TJ (3)
-1.0000 Marty (3)
-1.0000 Clayton (4)

New Win ratings:
 1.0000 Whendy (2)
 0.6429 JeffF (4)
 0.2308 Clay (4)
 0.2143 William (5)
 0.2000 RussD (2)
 0.1176 JP (6)
 0.1176 Daniel (5)
 0.1154 PJ (8)
 0.0714 BobR (4)
 0.0000 Allen (3)
 0.0000 DaveB (3)
 0.0000 Matt (3)
-0.1111 Jeffles (3)
-0.2222 Ben (2)
-0.2222 Tania (2)
-0.2500 Marty (3)
-0.2667 Clayton (4)
-0.2727 Alex (3)
-0.2857 Bob (4)
-0.2857 Dudley (4)
-0.2941 RussW (5)
-0.3333 JimC (2)
-0.3333 TJ (3)

Whendy aka WendyWhe is the Devil! Ironically she'll be out of town this week, so Vice-Devil JeffF can rule the dining table in her place. JP is Vice-Vice-Devil.

Links

Sorry, no fun link this week. If you want to be seriously creeped out by a webhost who specializes in "Online hate at its best", providing free webhosting to hundreds of hate sites, visit Front 14. Yuck.

When a Prince of Florence buys Freedom of Opinion, he probably doesn't expect to end up with shit like Front 14.

Russ