Whew! Last week was a record-breaker -- 14 gamers, with 3 separate gaming tracks for the first time, and a total of 9 games played! Kinesoft Chicago was well-represented by Eric and Peter and Lance (Lance's first RussCon). We had newcomers Tim and Alfred from UT. We had Jonathan and Dawn. Cool beans, what a crowd!

Results:

James was a true Settlers devil, winning all 4 of his Settlers games! Consider him to be wearing a big "Gang up on me" sign now...

Marty won 2/3 of his games (El Grande and Konzern, a German game of business about which I know nothing, but it preserved the all-German theme of the evening...).

JP won 2/3 of his games (Loewenherz and El Grande), making up for his hideous defeat in a Settlers game (finishing with 3 points after a decidedly wacky initial settlement placement which could only be explained by madness).

Tim won 1/3 his games (Mississippi Queen).

The other 9 of us are pathetic losers... so we'll just have to try again this week!

Also James and Brady played some Cribbage, but I'm not keeping stats on that! I'm also told they played some Montgolfiere with the Black Baron who beat them. He's a great AI.

For those interested in cumulative rank ratings, here's results from all Wednesday RussCons ((# opponents beaten - # opponents beating you) / # opponents):

Tom       8/12 =  0.67
EricH     9/16 =  0.56
Jonathan  2/6  =  0.33
Evan      4/13 =  0.31
Doug     10/49 =  0.20
James    15/93 =  0.16
RussW     8/78 =  0.10
Tim       1/11 =  0.09
Baron     1/15 =  0.07
Ken       3/48 =  0.06
JP        0/18 =  0.00
Alfred   -1/11 = -0.09
Marty    -5/43 = -0.12
Brady   -10/73 = -0.14
Kevin    -5/23 = -0.22
RussD    -8/30 = -0.27
Jay      -1/3  = -0.33
Rick     -7/20 = -0.35
Peter    -9/16 = -0.56
JeffS    -3/5  = -0.6
Dawn     -4/6  = -0.67
Lance    -8/11 = -0.73

I can't guarantee these are accurate, but I believe they are. (Jeez I need to write that program...) Of course take it all with a grain of salt and a tongue or two in your cheek... The most important thing is that we finally broke Evil Eric's winning streak! JP gets the Special Well-Balanced Award, being as threatening as he is threatened. Time for Tom to come back and let us push his rating down.

And for those wanting to play a LONGER more complex game instead of lots of short ones, this coming Sunday March 8 at 1pm is going to be 2038 day. This is an 18xx game; if you've played 1830, it's similar, but it's Trains In Space! Not for the impatient. 2038 works for up to 6 players (correct me if I'm wrong, Ken), so please commit in advance lest we end up with more than 6 showing up expecting to mine the asteroids. It WILL last into the evening. So far Ken and Marty and I are in, and I believe Rick wants in as well, right Rick? (Or if anyone wants to play Hispania, I suspect Rick would be happy!) So there's room for 2 more 2038 fans. (If people want to come by to play other games as well, that's cool, but 2038 gets the dining table.) We'll hash out details Wednesday night.

See you there!

Russ