October 14th, 2004 |
Karla and I played the second disk of Karaoke Revolution until about 7:30, when Dan showed up. I mangled "Jesse's Girl" and did a good job on "The Joker", and my "Born to Be Wild" weaved between excellent and pathetic.
| Ticket to Ride |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 128 | 1 | |
| Mike | 123 | 2 | |
| Karla | 101 | 3 | |
Notes: We hadn't played this one in a while, and it was the best of the light options Karla wanted to play, so I had Dan grab it from the top of the stack, and we connected some cities.
I tried a new strategy, and it almost worked. I wanted to make my three initial connections and then just make long connections. It would have worked, in fact, had I been paying closer attention. I'll discuss that later.
At the beginning, Dan and Karla were competing for track on the east coast, but no one was too impaired by the other. I started out in the West and managed to be in good shape, until I saw Dan and Karla converge around Pittsburgh and Nashville, two cities I needed to connect. I placed some track out east to ensure some easy connections, and I eventually managed to make my connections.
Dan and Karla each acquired new tickets after presumably making their initial routes. I just went for big connections, but I didn't keep in mind the "Longest Train" bonus until it was too late. By then, we were almost at the end, and I didn't have the colors required to make a longer connection. Karla was not really threatening for the lead, though I figured she had some nice routes. Almost all her connections were 2 or 3 trains, while Dan and I had a couple 4's and 6's.
I also made a mistake in thinking I could make two long connections at the end, but I didn't have enough cars. So I ended up giving Dan an extra turn or two, which may have cost me.
Final Scores:
Dan - 78 (Connections) + 40 (Tickets) + 10 (Longest Train - 33) = 128
Mike - 84 (Connections) + 39 (Tickets) + 0 (Longest Train - 26) = 123
Karla - 53 (Connections) + 48 (Tickets) + 0 (Longest Train - 30) = 101
This was probably the most fun I'd had at this game, partly because I did pretty well. In fact, I thought I'd won until we remembered we had to give the longest train bonus.
| Colossal Arena |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 16 | 1 | |
| Dan | 9 | 2 | |
| Karla | 7 | 3 | |
Notes: It had been several months since I freaked out...until tonight. This game was actually a restart after I freaked out in the first run. Had other people been there, I probably wouldn't have freaked out, and I wasn't really that angry, but I acted like a jackass.
In the first game, which Karla insisted that she would have won, I had placed a secret bet on the Titan - there were no bets on him for a while. As the round progressed, though, the Titan received a very crappy card, crappier than the crappy card I had played on the Troll or Seraphim (which no one had bet on). So, I placed a visible bet on the Titan. This is 9 points worth of bets. I fended off one attack, but was soon hit with another, and one final one that knocked the Titan out of the tournament. With only 10 possible points to gain I lost it and threw my cards and betting chip against the wall. I didn't figure I'd have to live through 3 attacks in the first round alone, but Dan and Karla proved me wrong. Then Karla and I yelled at each other because, in the last game, she helped kill one of her own monsters, and I thought she had put her secret bet on the Titan in this game, and I lost it, saying, "Why do you kill your own monsters? Just to get to the next round? That's not how you play the game!!"
Turns out we were miscommunicating. She thought Dan was asking about my secret bet. Hers was on the Gorgon. Dan thought it was hilarious that I lost my shit. He kept saying, "That was great!"
So, on the, um, restart, I played better. But not only did I ruin the first game, but I was accused of cheating in the second game, because I said that you can only place a secret bet in the first round - thus, before any monsters are killed, NOT only in the first turn of laying cards. So, I waited in the second game to see what monsters were popular, and put a secret bet on one of them (the Ettin) whom Karla was supporting.
Of course, I was yelled at for this, too, and when I offered to re-start again, Karla said, "We just need to finish this game," and we continued. The game progressed well, though Dan accidentally revealed that he was the secret backer of the Titan. The Amazon was killed first, with no bets on her, and I was the backer of the Seraphim, which was awesome, because as monsters kept getting killed I was able to use more and more powers. I was also the backer on the Daimon long enough to place a bet back in the first round on the Troll, though he ended up getting killed anyway.
The Gorgon only made it to round two before getting squeezed out, as I had Karla helping my secret Ettin and I openly aided the Troll, Daimon, and Seraphim. Dan went for the Seraphim at first, but then stopped and went for the Gorgon in round 2. I couldn't understand why he did it, unless he thought I'd freak out again.
In round three, Dan managed to take over my backing of the Daimon, but he no longer had any betting chips, so it was sort of useless. Karla was keeping the Wyrm and Ettin alive, and I made sure I kept the Seraphim alive through round 3. Karla managed to kill off the Troll though, making sure that Dan and I lost some chips. Oh, well.
In round 4, I was low on cards, and when there was a 3-way tie for last, I was allowed to break the tie (again, Dan held onto a card he could have played to end the round but didn't), and I killed off the Titan, which had Dan and Karla bets on him.
Thus, in the last round, the Ettin, Seraphim, Wyrm, and Daimon were still around. I needed to keep the Ettin and Seraphim alive, and Dan needed to kill one of those two to have a chance, so I went into some delay tactics, trying to use up the deck before one of those two would be killed. The Daimon was safe, as Dan had more bets on him than I did. My delays worked, and all 4 creatures survived. Dan thought that was lame (and I'm agreeing with him now. I think I'll dig up the old rules on this to make the game last until only 3 are left).
Due to my stupid actions, I am giving both Dan and Karla credit for a victory (with all the points included) while I get a big fat ZERO.
A freakout and some "cheating". That's a lot to live down for one evening and I still feel guilty.