Saturday night I headed east from my hotel to Rob Smolka's house for some more gaming.  I was pretty beat after 27 holes of golf and 3 hours of instruction but I'm not complaining - I rarely pass on an opportunity like this.  Rob and Tammy have a great home for hosting, and by the time I arrived at 7pm there were already two tables up and running.  Rob, Tammy, Jason, and Bobby were standing by waiting for me to arrive so we could start a game of El Grande.  At the other table a game of La Citta was also getting started.  Again, I'll provide more pics than commentary.

El Grande

This one has been on my "need to play" list for some time, and I made a special request to the Arizona Boardgamers before coming down to get this one out.  First, the game is just beautiful - the colors fit the Spanish theme well, and the colors are distinct enough to quickly count cubes.

El Grande is an influence game - players are trying to move their caballeros into regions of spain to gain control by having a majority position.  Actions allow players to introduce new caballeros, shift their own and others' caballeros, and interfere with the actions of others.  Turn order can be very important, and each player has cards numbered 1-13 that are played during a turn order auction.  Bobby, Rob, Tammy, and Jason joined me, with Jason doing a great job explaining the rules.  I've learned that I have a hard time focusing on all of the rules at the start - I'm lacking any context from which to understand the details, so I usually like to get started quickly and figure it out as I go.  As a result I usually have a poor showing in my first play of most games (OK, some would say I have poor showings in most subsequent plays as well, but that's a topic for another day).

I was impressed with Jason's play of this game - he clearly thought through a strategy early on and stuck with it.  Rob hung close most of the game, with Tammy, Bobby, and I pulling up the rear.  I wish I had a detailed game log of this one to better understand Jason's approach, but I'm fairly certain he focused on getting a presence everywhere he could, even settling for second and third in most of the regions.  My greatest frustration was turn order - I didn't get some of the nuances around positioning leading up to each of the 3 scoring rounds, and I ended up still holding my 1 and 13 cards in my hand at the end of the game.  I didn't do too poorly though - I finished third behind Jason (see how far he got on scoring track below) and Rob.

La Citta

Not much to say about this one since I didn't play it, but I do have a picture to show.  I think that's Matthew on the left, and I think that's Scott on the right.  Scott won the game.

Mamma Mia!

I really don't like memory games. This is a cute little filler, but I just don't like games where I need to keep track of card counts in multiple buckets.  I don't mind tracking broad strokes or trends, but detailed card counting just isn't my gig.  I only managed to complete one pizza order, and Jason won again.

Fresh Fish

Bobby asked for me to teach him this game, and Jason and Tammy joined for a 4-player game.  I'm getting pretty good at teaching this game, and this was a very sharp group so they picked it up quickly.  As good as I am with the expropriation rules, I still haven't made it through a game without at least one missed street tile placement.  I am getting better at playing this game and learning the right tricks to force street placement.  Jason and Bobby were very quick at picking up strategy, and it was a close match.  Tammy got herself in a bind early by being forced to place her fish shop before she wanted to.  I had a similar event happen as my last playing at Kevin's house - I had three solid positions cemented, then got a short route turned into a max route do to an end-game misplay.  Jason won with 7, Bobby scored 9, Chris 18, and Tammy 22.  We used gold for tie-breakers.

Mexica

It was time for me to leave after Fresh Fish, but there was a game of Mexica going on so I took a few pictures.  I think that's Matthew, Rob, Jeff, and Jeff's wife.  If I screwed up any of the names, post a comment and I'll correct!

My thanks go out to the group for their hospitality, especially Rob and Tammy.  Let me know if you ever head up my way!

It was a long, hot, but fun day here in the greater Phoenix area.  Steve and I spent the morning and afternoon at golf school with our great instructor Ubie Gentile.  It typically takes a few weeks for intense lessons like this to settle in and impact my game in a positive way.  For now I'm just a jumble of different swing thoughts.

Here are a few of the things I need to work on for my own references:

• My setup with my irons and fairway woods needs to be more balanced.  Currently I have too much right-tilt, which is appropriate off the tee.
• I need to lower my hands in all of my full swing shots.  Let them hang down naturally to find their proper position.
• My grip was a bit too neutral - need to be a bit weaker.
• With my height and flexibility, I need to be careful not to over-swing.  Ubie recommends about a 75-80% effort on my swings to get more under control and maintain repeatable ball flight.
• Perhaps my biggest challenge right now is a lower body that is too busy.  Work on keeping it still, particularly my knees.
• Maintain a strong finish.

Today we played 18 holes at Las Sendas after our lessons, 9 of them with Ubie.  Playing the course with the pro is always the highlight, since I appreciate hearing about course management, shot selection, and dealing with the variable conditions on the course.  Tomorrow we'll play 9 at Last Sendas and as many holes as we can stand at the Arizona Golf Resort.

I was able to stay awake late enough tonight to join the Arizona Boardgamers at Gamer's Edge in Chandler.  It was a fun, welcoming crowd and I look forward to seeing some of them again tomorrow.  I'll give a quick rundown of the games with some pictures.

Tycoon

My first play of this game, and I enjoyed it very much.  Players are tycoons jetting from major city to city to build hotels, factories, gaining money in a number of ways:

• Having the highest or second-highest number of hotels in a city.
• Having factories in a city.
• Having a broad distribution of presence in the 9 cities.
• Bonus points for having factories in the city with the most number of hotels built out.

Hotels are worth more in some cities than in others.  One interesting mechanic - the more built out a city gets, the more money the leaders in that city get, up to a point at which their value degrades (over-crowding I suppose).  Fun game - it flowed quickly and had a diversity of methods to score.

Jeff won, followed by Junior, Chris, and Rob.

Java

Steve, Jason, and someone else that left early played Java.  I don't think they finished the game, but I think Steve was in the lead when they had to stop.

New England

There were six of us left at this point, so we split into two groups of three.  Jason, Steve, and I decided to play New England.  This one surprised me - I enjoyed it and look forward to playing it again.  I started developing quickly and raced to a substantial lead, but Steve's plan to build an early income source by choosing villagers and using his cash to develop valuable properties in the mid- and end-game.  Steve won, with Jason and I finishing very close.

Anno 1452

Junior, Jeff, and Rob played this game, which I had never seen before tonight.  The board reminds me of Wallenstein, and Rob Smolka even referred to it as "Wallenstein Lite".  I left before the game finished, but they looked like they were enjoying themselves.

Tonight I'll be speaking at a Software Association of Oregon Web Services Panel, then tomorrow morning I take an early flight to Phoenix, Arizona.  Next week is the American Banker Online 2003 conference at which I'll be on another panel where we'll discuss the future of online financial services.

Never one to miss out on a chance to mix some fun with business, I'm leaving tomorrow morning so I can spend a couple of days learning how to (better?) play golf.  I'll give a report sometime this weekend on my progress.

Also, Saturday night I hope to hook up with the Arizona Boardgamers, who were kind enough to invite me over for some gaming fun.  Hopefully I won't be too dried up from the blistering heat to enjoy myself.

My wife happens to be an amazing cook.  On the few nights each week that we are actually able to site down as a family and eat together, Julie treats us very well.  She also knows how to cook for a crowd (I could never get the multiple-dish-timing thing down) and our friends and family often ask for copies of her recipes.  She keeps track of them electronically so I'll post them here (254.92 KB).  I thought about taking the time to turn her recipe list into some sort of RSS feed, but for now you can deal with the plain text.

Its been a long, worthwhile road for Scott.  Congrats!

Jacob and I drove the 45 minutes to Vancouver, WA for an afternoon (and evening) of gaming at Doug and Mimi's.  Many of the usual suspects joined us, including Kevin Graham, Sabrina & Greg, and Kim.  This is turning into a great crowd with similar interests - great personalities all around.

Take it Easy

The board and tiles for Take it Easy.

We started with a couple of games of Take It Easy.  This is a great opener - a bingo-like game that is easy to learn but has some difficult choices.  The goal is to maximize the number and score for continuous segments in three different directions.  Since you don't know which tiles will be called (all players are playing with the same tiles), chosing when to disrupt a potential score can be very difficult.  I did pretty well in this game, winning both rounds with scores of 161 and 162.  Jacob won the comeback player of the round award - he jumped from a 44 to a 132!  One interesting tidbit in this game was that in the second round, at least 4 of us had identical boards through the first 6 or 7 tiles.

Airlines

Chris and Jacob playing Airlines.  Note the HUGE gaming collection behind us.

At this point we split into two groups of four - Jacob, Mimi, Greg, and I played Airlines while everyone else played Industrial Waste.  I've taken a liking to transportation-themed games, particularly those that involve route planning and some degree of cooperation.  Airlines is the predecessor to Union Pacific, and one can easily see why this would make a good train game.  I got off to a terrible start... I was unable to found a new airline in my first turn due to very poor flight cards, so right off the bat I was helping other people and hoping to gain a leg up in stock.  The only reason I even stayed close for a while was a favorably timed scoring round right after I took control of one of Greg's better airlines.  This was a great match, with the following round-by-round scores:

Jacob fully built out and maintained control of a major airline, and wrested control of another from Mimi towards the end, causing a huge spurt in the final scoring round to take the game.

Industrial Waste

I didn't play this one, but it looked interesting and consensus was that this is a keeper.  Kevin won with Sabrina finishing second.

Java

This is one I've been itching to try for sometime.  This is a beautiful game, but a bit of a brain-burner.  The game is just so open - many choices each turn, and it seems to be a game where you should be spending at least as much time worrying about what your oponent will do after your turn as you do about the turn itself.  I found myself maximizing my scoring opportunity only to create an even bigger opportunity for Kevin and Doug.  Doug raced ahead quickly in this one through some smart play of irrigation tiles.  I made some decent moves toward the end and shored up some solid end-game scoring for our larger cities, but it wasn't enough to hold off Doug.  Final scores: Doug 108, Chris 100, Kevin 86.

Shortly after starting our Java game, Mimi was kind enough to serve everyone a fabulous dinner of fried rice, coconut shrimp, salad, and other goodies.  As I've mentioned before, Doug and Mimi always take great care of their guests and this was no exception.

A La Carte

Someone mentioned how few games are designed for sterotypical female interests, so Doug and Mimi had to reach into their vast collection to grab a light cooking game with really cool bits.

The cooking game - see the cute little pans and ingredients?

Can't Stop

For a closer we played a couple of games of Can't Stop, the Sid Sackson classic.  This was a first for me and Jacob, and we both loved it.  Of course I played horribly in my one shot at this one - Doug won (he actually completed 4 lines!) and I only had two markers on the board.  Don't let the dice and random elements of this game fool you - there's some real strategy in this combined with a gambling mechanic.

McMulti

Doug setting up McMulti.

Jacob and I needed to head home to get some sleep, but Doug, Mimi, and Kevin stayed on to play McMulti.

I had to work, but Julie, Jacob, and Matthew spent most of Friday in Lincoln City, the closest coastal town to our home in Sherwood.  The summer is ticking away, and Julie realized she had not yet taken the time to spend a day playing in the sand and surf.  The Oregon coast is a special place unlike most in the world - it isn't a place to swim or sunbathe since the water is mostly too cold and warm sunny days are few and far between.  It is a place to play and gaze at the scenic landscapes.  Jacob and Matthew mostly enjoy digging in the sand, building walls, castles, moats, and burying each other.  We recommend avoiding the beaches on the main highway 101 drag in Lincoln City - they tend to be overcrowded and a bit dirty.  Instead head north of town, past the casino, to Road's End State Recreation Site.  Of course you'll need to eat some seafood as well - your best bet is the Dory Cove Restaurant, also at Road's End.  Your best bets are the clam chowder and the battered halibut.

I finally have another release of FreshFish available for download.  I think this version looks quite a bit nicer (thanks to Angela for providing some updated graphics), and the usability is drastically improved.  Most of the improvements though are in the underlying game engine, since I had a number of things wrong with rules, end-game, and certain game states in the previous version.  I do still have a ways to go though... some other points:

• If you don't know how to play, read the rules.
• Scott Hanselman sat down for some pair programming with me and gave some great advice, most of which made it into this version.  His most striking comment was this: "Is it a game or a business application?"  This hit home... the use of status bar, menu bar, etc. does make it look too much like an office productivity tool.  Expect a makeover in the next release.
• I hope the rules are solid in this version, since I really would like to move onto networked play.  Please report any issues you see.

Have fun!

For the thousands of you that check my weblog daily (OK, the 3-5 of you), you obviously noticed I was down for a while.  My ISP (Stormhosts - great prices for ASP.NET hosting) had a major outage, presumably caused by the blast virus outback.  In any case, I'm back.

Busy week of travel - two days in Charlotte last week, one day in San Francisco on Monday, and just got back from Phoenix tonight after a 24 hour round-trip.