And how 'bout we total up those scores.

My mathematical obsessive compulsive brain needed to make a summary of the scores for the year.

Notice that the columns read "WINS" and "NON-WINS". I did this because we play a lot of games with more than two people. A player may have come in a very close second in a game with 5 people. I don't consider this a "LOSS", but just a "NON-WIN".

Also, I added a column for win percentage, and an adjusted win percentage. I added the adjusted percentage to compensate for the number of games played. It's really not fair for a person to come in, play ONE game, win it, and then be credited with the best win percentage in the bunch. SO I simply multiplied the win percentage by the total number of games played. This is a rather simple approach, and I'm certain we can come up with something better, but it'll do for now.

Here's the leaderboard at the end of our first semester...

PLAYER	WINS	NON-WINS	TOTAL GAMES	WIN %	ADJUSTED WIN % (x TOTAL GAMES)
Chris	21	19	40	52.5	2100
Jake	10	29	39	25.6	998.4
Charles	5	8	13	38.5	500.5
Thomas	2	3	5	40	200
Eugene	1	6	7	14.3	100.1
Don	1	3	4	25	100
Igor	1	0	1	100	100
Matt	0	8	8	0	0
Manny	0	4	4	0	0
Christine	0	4	4	0	0
Cathy	0	2	2	0	0

After hours Blokus.

After the game of Scarab Lords described below, Eugene and Jake talked me into running back up to my office to get Blokus. When I returned, they convinced Don to join us for some 4-player Blokus (as I've said before: "The best way to play!").

We managed to get in four games before Jake had to head out for his Microbio final, and Eugene to his business class final.

In the first game, Jake got boxed in painfully quickly. He suggested that he threw the game so he could stop and study his Microbiology notes. But we all know better.

Here's how the game went down:
Chris: -8
Eugene: -13
Don: -18
Jake: -30

Don had a pretty good showing for his first game, really. Maybe we were going easy on him because of it.

No such luck in the second game! In fact, as soon as the inevitable melee in the middle of the board happened, Don blurted out "People are trying to kill me!" We really aren't that vicious, although the slashing of tires was threatened numerous times during the game. Seriously, it was. I mean it. I really do.

Here's how Game #2 turned out:
Eugene: -7
Chris: -9
Jake: -18
Don: -19

Jake decided to get a picture of the bunch of us. Eugene's on the left, expecting to win, Don is thinking hard in the middle, his face blocked as he was trying to figure out where to cram his piece, and Chris is holding up a couple of pieces he really wanted to get rid of. Jake is taking the picture, but you can see the large pile of his red pieces on the table.

Here's some scores from game #3:
Don: -10
Chris: -13
Eugene: -17
Jake: -24

After 3 games, Don is already sitting in the winner's circle. Not bad.

We managed to squeak in one more... just to give you another example of our aggressive gameplay, halfway through the game, as Jake was placing a large piece which would have blocked a couple of players, he decided against it saying, "Nah, that's not enough screwage."

[The chess club has t-shirts which say something to the effect of "Our only goal is to mate!" I'm sure we could come up with a similar slogan that includes the word 'screwage'.]

Results of Game #4:
Chris: -8
Don: -19
Eugene: -24
Jake: -28

---

What the heck, why don't we total up the scores for the four games...
Chris: -37
Eugene: -61
Don: -66
Jake: -100

And, for a little post-gaming analysis: The best score belongs to Eugene with a -7. Chris, though he only won 2 of the games, had THREE games with a score of -8. Also of note: Don, though it was his first set of Blokus games, always scored over -20. We'll just say that Jake was distracted by his impending Microbiology final...

Some after hours Scarabs.

I (Chris) knew Jake was studying for his Microbiology final down in the Math lab. I also knew he was going to need a big break. So I dragged down my copy of Scarab Lords and talked him into a quick game.

It turned out to be NOT a quick game. I think we are both starting to see some of the strategic possibilities of this game. It's rather impressive.

Jake still had a couple misconceptions on win conditions, and thought he had one at least once during the game. He was dominating the board for a while, owning all of the right side of the board (from the point of view in the picture). He had actually run out of cards and was on the verge of losing due to that. Somehow, Chris managed to eliminated his power from two of the regions on that right side, claiming dominance in two regions on each side -- which is the main win condition. The picture shows the board at the end of the game.

I say again -- I like this game. Not just because I have been doing well. There is a lot to it, and you have to cover a lot of ground with little resources. It is well put together. There is a lot to remember -- it sort of helps if you recite your phases and what you can do during each as you play. I think one or two more times through could give me more of the flow. I could see this game being less fun playing against an unworthy opponent, or someone who was unwilling to concentrate on a lot of things at once.

But to me: it's fun. Strategic and vicious and frustrating and beautiful and fun.

Semester 1 - Success!

Well, we are at the end of the semester. Today (Mon., Dec. 19) marks the last official Strategic Game Club gameday!

We had a great semester - we played 15 different games (see the navigation bar at left), and forced about a dozen people to enjoy themselves for a couple hours each Monday.

Thanks to Cathy Willms for coming up with the idea!

Thanks to Jake for carrying it along, as well as designing the web site logo!

I am certainly looking forward to next year...

Blokus-fest '05!

We played a lot of Blokus today... (Monday, December 19, 2005).




The first game featured Jake, Igor and Chris battling it out for supremacy of the Blok! Jake got knocked out first, Chris soon after, and Igor managed to sneak in a few pieces at the end to win.

Final score:
Igor: -11
Chris: -18
Jake: -24

Here's Igor presenting the winning board, and Jake pondering as to how he got shut out so quickly. Notice the way we block off the outer 3 rows of two sides the board to make it less easy for 3 players.




Igor's wife stopped by and swept him away from us. Selena filled in the gap, though... so played continued with game number TWO!

Here's a photo of the board at the end of that game. Selena was shut out quickly, but really did well for her first game. Especially against Jake and me (Chris), who are two rather brutal and aggressive Blokus players. Jake held on for a while, but Chris managed to find some corners to get all of his pieces in except for his 5-in-a-straight-line piece.

Final Score:
Chris: -5
Jake: -13
Selena: -29





Selena's ride showed up right as we finished game number. Eagle-eye Jake saw Eugene drifting by and quickly convinced him to sit in. Game number 3 begins!!

It looked like Eugene was dominating the board from the beginning - at least that's how Jake and Chris saw it. Perhaps that is why he got trapped so quickly -- he turned into a target. This game turned out to have what is probably the most leftover pieces in any 3-player Blokus game we've played. It was really a sloppily aggressive game...

Final Score:
Chris: -19
Jake: -28
Eugene: -32





Jake, Eugene, and Chris jumped right back into another game. We played a little bit better this time. But not much -- the relentless, aggressive block-and-tackle showed itself again in this game.

The picture to the left is how the board ended...

Final Score:
Jake: -14
Eugene: -21
Chris: -23

...a very different result from the last game. It really shows how this game has such great replay value. Decisions made early in the game, though they certainly will not doom you completely, can really affect the end-game result.





Blokus was intended to be played by 4 folks at once. We make adjustments to play with two or three, but FOUR is the best. So, when Pat drifted by, we weren't going to let him get away before we got in a game of Blokus as it was meant to be played. Game number 5 had Jake, Eugene, Chris, and Pat in a Blokus battle royale!

Much cursing was to follow...

The picture here shows not only the end of the game, but also the leftover pieces, as well as one of the most important auxiliary items of the Strategic Gaming Club: a cup of coffee.

Here's the numbers from the last game of the semester:
Chris: -8
Jake: -9
Eugene: -14
Pat: -31

Pat did come in last, but like Selena above, this was his first time playing the game -- he really held on pretty well. He tried to carve out his own corner (he was Red in the lower right of the pic), but Jake (Yellow) managed to infiltrate his corral. Eugene (Blue) tried a strategy of long, thin, sneaky tendrils -- he was all over the board, but couldn't break into and dominate any area very well. Chris and Jake managed to ooze their way across much of the board, trying to always keep escape routes available. It's a tough balance -- once again an indication of the strategy, grace and beauty of Blokus.

Play like an Egyptian

Jake and I (Chris) started with a two-player game called Scarab Lords.

It plays like a collectible card game, but it has 2 pre-built decks -- there's no collecting or deck-building, it's all built for you. So it has the strategy of a CCG, but you can just jump right in.

I enjoyed this game quite a bit. Jake and I only got in 2 games, but I could see it being a quick game with some hearty strategy and a reasonable amount of luck. A game could probably be as short as 3 minutes, or as long as 20.

As is the case with most Reiner Knizia games, resources are at a premium. You each start with a hand of 6 cards... if you'd like more, you generally have to skip your whole turn. Some cards allow to draw new cards without turn-skipping.

Each turn then consists of 4 parts -- phase 0, phase 1, phase 2, and the Supremacy phase. The cards indicated during which phase they can be played. During the supremacy phase, the power and influence over different zones are investigated, and power shifts back and forth. When you have power, it actually can give you some extraordinary abilities, increasing your power and putting your opponent on the defensive quickly. The power in the game has a lot of momentum... especially if the person behind has a bad hand of cards -- skipping a whole turn to get good cards can be devastating.

Chris won two quick games against Jake, but then other players started to arrive, so we moved on.

Apparently, a sequel has been created: Minotaur Lords! And the games have the same rules, so you can crossover the sets of cards. Now it looks a little more like a CCG... *-sigh-* I guess I'll have to buy that one, too.

Quick update for Jake

Jake and Chris and Thomas jumped into a game of Torres. We only got through 2 of the 3 rounds, and Jake had to go fill in and teach a review class for a sick professor.

Here's a quick lowdown of the score at that point -- I know Jake was dying to know how it turned out...

Chris was in a sad last place with 78.

Jake was scored next, and his score was 89.

Then Thomas scored his pieces -- he also ended up with 89. Torres rules state that there is no tie, the last person to obtain the tie score gets an extra point to break the tie. Thomas wins with 90 points on a TECHNICALITY!!

That's gotta hurt.


Actually, to be honest, this score isn't very kosher, because we interrupted the game with a whole phase of the game left to play.



But, still. A technicality. Thomas had never even played the game before. He was even still kind of fuzzy on the rules. And HE got the extra point.

Ouch, man.




Ouch.