Easy, Easy, Easy.

Hmmm thinking back what has been played?? I know last week Amun Ray was won by Matt against Al, Chris Rachel and Andy. This is one of Matts favourite games and he was playing it against at least two players who had never seen it before and one player who had at best played it once. Chris put up an impressive fight but alternately Mr Bond won. So congratulations to Matt for that, next week Jensen Button has promised to race Ben home by car whilst Jimmy cycles against Bradley Wiggins. Now if you sat Jensen down and got him to play Hannibal or Bradley to play St Petersburg I’m sure the results might be different. Caylus next week anyone?

It was definitely a night for experience over naivety as we introduced Mark to the euro gaming world, NBG and a Jimmy rules session. Jimmy thrashed Mark, John and myself at age of empires III. The interactions in the early stages between several players skewed the margin of victory, but the result was probably inevitable regardless as Jimmy played a calculated, measured game. There is definitely an element of machine building in this board game and once Jimmy had his established he was difficult to peg back with the group playing. I tried a different approach from the first few times I played this (last time was with Sim and I was thinking about opening a shop in the city), but hadn’t fleshed this tactic out enough and ultimately came in second, John was third and Mark (his first time at NBG) was fourth. John and I played this again on Saturday night and both of us had greater success, I used the same failed tactic but this time with a bit more experience and managed to get a significant score (even without the pirates tile). John also got a significant score as we both profited from understanding the nuances more than on Tuesday night.

Experience can definitely make the difference with many Euros which must put so many people off. I know Tom who always plays well and Ben, comment on the opportunity to play games for a second or third time in close succession. But why would we do that if we might lose?? Its much more fun to win.