A Square Deal

We ended our Monday, November 21, 2005 game session with a 4-player game of Blokus.

Blokus has a bunch of tiles that look like they've been ripped from a game of Tetris. Players take turns placing their pieces on the board. Any new piece you place must touch a previously played piece only corner-to-corner. Two pieces of the same color can never be side-to-side. Each player is simply trying to put down all of his or her 21 peces of different sizes and patterns.

When we began, Chris was horrified to find that one of the yellow pieces was missing! We used a piece of paper to fill in the blank. Passers-by couldn't help but pick on our ghettoized replacement. (Follow-up note: He called the manufacturer Educational Insights... a new piece is on the way! They have AMAZING customer service.)

Here's how it played out:

Blokus Scores
player	squares left
Charles	9
Chris	9
Christine	31
Jake	42

So, Charles and Chris tied with 9 squares left -- they were able to get the most on the board.

After the game was over, Jake noticed that Chris could have finshed if he played a 5-square piece instead of a 4-square piece on his final turn! But alas, due to his foolishness, the tie stands...