July 21 1999 RussCon Report

15 of us, including new person Mindy.

Remember, the first week of August there will be no gaming at my house. I'll be away at the annual Go Congress, which is the greatest week of the year. Marty has organized alternate gaming for Monday of that week (Monday August 2) since William is free on Mondays. (By the way, William recommends http://www.angst.org/archive/post426.html for your reading pleasure.)

Next week there will be RussCon As Usual (Wednesday July 28).

=====

Puffing Billy Tournament and Laser Quest:

About 5 months ago we had an all-day Settlers tournament, with the winner (Jay) receiving free admission to a RussCon Laser Quest outing that 30 or so of us went to. There's been talk of it being about time to do Laser Quest again, as well as doing another boardgame tournament.

Train games are being very popular lately, so I want to host an all-day "Puffing Billy" tournament. Play a variety of train games, including:

Union Pacific
Santa Fe
Trainsport Austria
Ferrocarriles Pampas
1830 (which could be played on the computer to speed it up)
Rail Baron
Those stupid Mayfair crayon games whose names I shall not utter
Uncle Happy's Train Game if anyone actually owns it :-)

...and others I'm sure I'm forgetting, but someone will remind me of them.

The idea would be that you must play lots of different train games, e.g. at least 4 different titles. If you don't have time to play all day, you're still welcome and encouraged to come and play a few games. Self-organize your games just like a regular RussCon. As in the Settlers tournament, the same group of players can't play together in 2 games; mix up groups between games. Tournament results will be judged using the usual RussCon Devil Points system. There's no entry fee. The winner receives free admission for a future Laser Quest outing (subsidized by all the other participants equally).

If you're interested in this idea, please email me and let me know. Tell me which Saturday or Sunday in August or September would be good for you to do this (August 14 or later). Or would you be interested in a 2-day tournament (Saturday & Sunday)? We'll arrange the Laser Quest time later, but it would probably be a Monday night like last time.

In the meantime, I recommend playing any train games you haven't already played to start, uh, training.

=====

Game Results:

HookOrCrook 5 RussW 4 Bob 2 JeffF 0 SteveZ -2 WendyWhe -4
ModernArt 4 JP 3 SteveZ 1 Bob -1 WendyWhe -3
Rheinlaender 5 Tim 4 Harry 2 Alfred 0 Fred -2 Mindy -4
Euphrates 4 Jay 3 Randy 1 Marty -1 Clayton -3
Tayu 2 JeffF 1 RussW -1
RicochetRobot 3 Tim 2 Alfred 0 Harry -2
Bluff 3 Randy 2 WendyWhe 0 Harry -2
MembersOnly 5 JeffF 4 RussW 2 Marty 0 Fred -2 Mindy -4
UnionPacific 5 RussW 4 WendyWhe 2 Randy 0 JeffF -2 Alfred -4

For some reason, a lot of the games played took a long time, so only 9 games were recorded this week. We kept thinking Members Only was about to end, but no! Still, it was a rather cool game that I'd enjoy playing again.

I enjoyed playing By Hook or Crook again. It's designed by Klaus "Settlers" Teuber, and was published in the US by Avalon Hill before Settlers arrived and popularized German games.

Union Pacific is proving to be the popular game lately, and there's always much discussion afterward about strategy.

An unrecorded game session was JP and Marty playtesting a Condottiere expansion variant of Brady's. Rumors have it that JP was kicking their butts.

=====

Evening's Soundtrack:

Given the incredible severe storms we've had lately, it seemed appropriate to play CDs that each had a song about rain.

Cracker, Cracker ("Another Song About the Rain")
The Doors, L.A. Woman ("Riders on the Storm")
Garbage, Garbage ("Only Happy When it Rains")
Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy ("The Rain Song")
Supertramp, Famous Last Words ("It's Raining Again")

Congratulations to Alfred who was the only one to detect this theme.

Also congratulations to Alfred who got older at midnight, as the Cracker song "Happy Birthday To Me" played, by happy coincidence.

=====

Rank ratings:
 1.0000 JP (1 game played)
 1.0000 Jay (1)
 1.0000 Tim (2)
 0.6923 RussW (4)
 0.3333 Randy (3)
 0.2308 JeffF (4)
 0.1429 Bob (2)
-0.1429 Marty (2)
-0.1429 SteveZ (2)
-0.2500 Harry (3)
-0.3846 WendyWhe (4)
-0.4000 Alfred (3)
-0.5000 Fred (2)
-1.0000 Mindy (2)
-1.0000 Clayton (1)

New Win ratings:
 1.0000 JP (1)
 1.0000 Jay (1)
 1.0000 Tim (2)
 0.4615 RussW (4)
 0.2308 JeffF (4)
 0.0000 Randy (3)
-0.2500 Fred (2)
-0.2500 Mindy (2)
-0.2857 Bob (2)
-0.2857 Marty (2)
-0.2857 SteveZ (2)
-0.3000 Alfred (3)
-0.3077 WendyWhe (4)
-0.3333 Clayton (1)
-0.3750 Harry (3)

For the first time in a while, the partial ordering is simple enough for me to draw it out:

             JP=Jay=Tim
                 |
               RussW
               /   \
           JeffF   Randy
             |  \ /  |
             |   X   |
             |  / \  |
             Bob  Fred
             /      \
       Marty=SteveZ  \
         /  |  \    Mindy
        /   |   \     /
       / Alfred Wendy/
    Harry    \   |  /
              \  | /
              Clayton

Tim is the Devil! JP & Jay pulled Brady Maneuvers (i.e. only playing one game and winning it), so are ineligible to be Devil. (But JP did playtest Brady's game, so if Tim doesn't show, JP can be Devil next week). Clayton pulled a Reverse Brady Maneuver. Russ, Jeff & Wendy share the Dedicated Award.

=====

Remember: Wednesday August 4 there is no RussCon!

=====

I'm only happy when it rains.
My only comfort is the night gone black.
I'm riding high upon a deep depression.
I'm only happy when it rains.

Russ