A little late, but I came down with something towards the end of the week and into my first week back in Toronto and wasn't really up to doing much of anything but lying around and sleeping or watching BSG. At any rate, brief summary time!
Friday
Le Havre Finals - You may note from my initial schedule plan that the Le Havre finals were Saturday morning and I was slated to play Stone Age in this slot. Well, it turned out that the schedule online and posted at the door to the room said Saturday but the schedule in the program said Friday. Thankfully I double checked with the GM after I noticed the discrepancy or I'd have shown up very confused Saturday morning.
The game itself was a 4-player game, featuring two Dans and two Nicks. I got off to what I felt was a pretty good early start, buying the marketplace and the cheap building firm. I made 12 bricks in the midgame and was able to use the first special building to convert bread + grain into a bunch of money to buy/build the coilery and the cokery. I also had the wharf (vendored at one point though to kick someone out so I could build a boat) and used the 12 brick to build a lot of good buildings. I decided to use my iron with the bricks to build the buildings instead of building iron ships with it like I normally do and it ended up costing me big time.
The special building came out that lets you turn 1 iron and 15 energy into 2 steel, which both Nick H and Dan E used to build the first two steel ships. I was too busy futzing around with buildings to get involved and it cost me. I only had a wooden ship so I needed a ton of food each turn, and I'd turned my bread and grain into bucks earlier. As such I had to slaughter my cows and eat them, which goes against my general game plan which is to ship them to Spain. I didn't have any boats though, so it wasn't like I had anything to ship them on anyway...
The game came to an unexpectedly quick end after that. I spent the last few turns robbing the local court and ended up with all my loans paid off and a lot of good buildings. I had the storehouse so I didn't need to throw stuff over the bridge or try to ship a lot on my useless wooden boat, though I think I did ship coke at some point.
I ended up finishing third after the two guys who built early steel ships. (Dan E won the only plaque as it was a trial event.) They also completely avoided loans, though I think my loan plan would have been good enough if I'd not wasted all my iron on buildings and instead had actually built ships. Taking loans is good because it lets you avoid feeling like you need to eat your cows, but you do need ships eventually so you don't eat your cows later on anyway.
In retrospect I think part of the problem I had was how fast the game progressed because it was a 4 player game. Both my heat and my semi-final were 3 player games and they play a lot differently. (For one thing, you get 43 actions in a 3 player game and 36 in a 4 player game.) I had played a 4 player game earlier in the week in open gaming with Dan E, Robb, and Pounder and got blown out of that one too. I think I need to play more 4ers going forward to try to get a handle on the game.
I was a little bummed out about losing, but I'd clearly screwed up and hadn't played nearly as much as my opponents so it wasn't much of a surprise. We were hoping to get done in 2 hours so people could go play Tikal but that didn't work out, so I had time to burn. I think we ended up going to eat at Applebee's. Afterwards Robb jumped out of the car to play Titan while we looked for a parking spot and took Pounder's badge with him. This resulted in Pounder and I spending the next hour looking for the badge by calling the restaurant and going to all the lost and founds and tearing the room apart. On our way out to the car to search it again we stopped by the Titan room and found Robb sitting there with two badges... If only we had cell phones that worked in the US.
Alhambra - This is a game that came out on BSW way back when we were trying to build a town and my friend Josh took a real liking to it. I couldn't explain why but I really disliked the game then. A few months ago Duncan brought it over to a games day at my place and we played it and I ended up winning and kinda enjoyed it. I played again at the GCBGB event last month and won again. I wouldn't say I really like the game but I don't dislike it anymore, I seem to be ok at the game, and I had nothing else to do. So, I went and played.
My plan in Alhambra is to aggressively buy the two cheap building colours because there are fewer of them. I gladly overpay by a lot to get them since I can lock in guaranteed points if I get just 3 of them and even with overpaying and skipping a money draw they're comparable to the 'best' building tiles cost-wise. Less payoff, but less competition. After buying those I can backfill walls or another colour that I think I can compete in. That's what I did in the heat and squeaked out a close win. I ended up drawing the money that ended ages 1 and 2 I think, which put the hurt on the guy on me left who didn't have a building during the first scoring turn. He almost beat me despite that, so he probably wins if I'm a little less lucky.
Winning put me into the Alhambra semis, which were going to conflict with Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings also conflicted with the Factory Manager semis, and the Agricola semis, and the Race for the Galaxy semis... So I decided to skip it and play Alhambra again.
My Alhambra semi had me at a table with 3 elder ladies and a young Asian guy. Early game I had the choice to buy the second purple building at a huge overpayment (15 for a 9 I think; with the lost money grab I'd be paying more than twice 'market' value for it) or I could pass on it. The guy had the first purple building and had picked up the right amount of money to buy it on his turn for exact cost. The thought went through my head that I should buy it because I was really in a 2 player game and it was worth overpaying by that much to keep it out of his hands. I decided not to, and it definitely turned out to be the wrong choice. He ended up winning by a large margin with me coming very solidly second. All three of the women ended up buying buildings they couldn't place and on a couple occasions bought buildings that were valueless. Not maliciously by any stretch, they were just buying things that they could buy even if it didn't contribute to their 'winning the gameness'.
The game certainly plays out a lot differently if I'd bought the second purple building so I can't say for sure that I'd have won if I'd bought it, but I can definitely say in retrospect that failing to do so did cost me the game. The guy who won played very well the whole game so it would have been tight I think.
I now had a decision to make. Factory Manager is scheduled to last 2 hours. The Agricola semi was 1 hour after the Factory Manager semi. The final was the next day, so winning wouldn't create a conflict. My heat game was done in under an hour, so it's certainly possible to play in that length of time, but my heat game was also the fastest one and every other game took longer than an hour. I'd only played Factory Manager twice and I thought I had a good handle on the strategy and could compete, but I decided not to risk that I'd end up in a slow game.
Just before Agricola started I popped into the Factory Manager room to check on the progress of the games. It turned out they only had 9 people and played 3 3-player games which should be faster than 4-player games. One of the games was almost done but the other two weren't even halfway done. So, probably a good idea to have skipped it, though in retrospect my odds of winning it were likely higher than Agricola.
Agricola semis - Pounder and I both had 2 wins so we were in the top 16. Robb had a win and a second place and found himself in 17th place. One person missing the semis and he was in. We ended up waiting around for a bit to give the people playing the Goa finals a chance to show up... Basically until all copies of the game were set up around the room. Agricola has a fair bit of set-up time, and everyone made it in just in time. I'm pretty sure with that extra little buffer I had a decent chance of getting a Factory Manager game in before it started... Oh well.
At any rate, I was at a table with Randy Buehler (of Magic fame) and two guys I didn't recognize who both seemed like solid players. This round used the K deck and was a draft. (Occupations then improvements both in clockwise order.) I've played K deck maybe twice ever and I've never drafted before. Randy, who was on my right, said he'd never drafted before either, but maybe he was just playing mind games? The guy on my left made a comment at some point about how he plays a lot online and had done tons of drafts.
Before the round the 'experts' at the game were complaining about how there are three 'banned' cards that are overpowered and removed from games with sensible players but were in the decks here. These cards are the lover - occupation that costs 4 extra food but gives you a family growth even without room, the wet nurse - occupation that lets you pay 1 food to get a free family growth when you build a room, and the reed hut - improvement that costs 4 reed that comes with a free family member that you can use immediately but isn't worth the 3 points. My table had all three, as I opened wet nurse, Randy got the reed hut and the guy across from me got the lover. Guy on my left didn't get any of them and whined all game about how he had to play against all the 'broken' cards.
Lefty was starting player and his first action was to play an occupation which allowed him to pay 3 food to play an occupation whenever anyone else did (2 food for the last 3). He picked up some food on his second action (I think) and then played another occupation on his first turn next round which let him play his occupations at random but he got 3 food before paying costs if he did. He then played a minor improvement which gave him 3 food before paying the costs of an occupation. He then proceeded to net 18 food and all 5 of his remaining occupations as the rest of us played out a couple occupations each. As soon as he got all 3 cards in play Randy and I rolled our eyes at his complaints about having to face the 'broken' cards since it was very clear to us that he'd already won the game.
A lot of occupations have the problem that they're just not worth the action and the food to get them into play. When they cost no actions and gain you 4 food they're pretty awesome. The three of us may have gotten one 'extra' guy early game but I'm not sure an extra guy on turn 5 is even worth 18 food total over the course of the game. (He gets to take 9 actions but costs you 10 food. Is 9 actions better than 28 food? (Also, all the 'broken' cards have pretty substantial costs. Wet nurse is the cheapest by far, but I still paid 3 food and an action to get the guy. Lover costs you 6 food and an action. Reed hut costs you half an action, a wood, and 4 reed, which is a big deal especially early game when 2 reed is a first pick.)
A further thing to consider with all these 'broken' cards in play is the demand for the family growth space goes way, way down. Lover boy used it to get his 3rd dude, so he couldn't take family growth until he'd built two more rooms. I never wanted it. Reed hut guy still wants it, but he blew his first 4 reed on the hut so he was going to be way behind on building rooms. As a result, the 4th player gets a huge advantage of basically uncontested family growths all game long.
At any rate, the first two actions my free dude from the wet nurse took were day labourer for 2 food each. Not great. Maybe I should have gone for a fireplace and tried to scoop sheep or something, but that likely delays my wet nursing for a couple turns anyway, and I had a long term food plan. I'd drafted the slaughterman, the house goat, the weaver, the loom, and the milking stool. So I got a food each harvest, a food each round, a food every time someone killed animals, plus food for keeping sheep and cows around. Pretty sweet, but it took a lot of wood to build enough fences to get it up and running and that cut back on abusing the wet nurse. Eventually I got a second use out of the wet nurse and got an early family growth without room to max my family.
All the free food in our game meant we ate a comparably lower number of animals and vegetables which meant our scores were pretty high. I scored 47 which was good for a solid second place, but lefty scored 60 which is a pretty absurd Agricola score.
At one point during the game we had a spectator watching our game and after lefty took a 3 wood square he asked him why he didn't take the 4 wood instead. The answer was that the 4 wood was in fact 4 clay, but I took exception to the question being asked at all. The Agricola semis are not a C class event and the spectator was not the GM, so he had no business giving strategy advice and I asked him not to do so again. A few turns later a different spectator popped by and pointed out that lefty had just bought the well but didn't pay the resources. Lefty paid and then made a comment about how I was going to yell about interfering with the game again.
I then had to stress that there's a difference between enforcing game state and offering strategy advice. In Magic what you'd do is go and get a judge when you thought you saw an inconsistent game state and have them check in just in case you were wrong and it was just an option they chose not to take and by asking about it you'd be giving strategy advice. (When you do X, draw a card VS when you do X, you may draw a card. In the first you have to draw the card and are cheating if you don't. In the second you're allowed to not draw a card and it's just fine if you don't. In both cases you probably should draw the card, but an outside force should prompt you in the first case and should not in the second.) WBC doesn't have nearly the judge manpower that large Magic events do so that's not really an option here. (Especially since the Agricola GM decided to leave the room to rest after Advanced Civ and therefore couldn't be called over for minor things.)
At any rate, he paid for his well and we moved along, and I think he had a better understanding of why I didn't like the first question. The game could have devolved into a tense affair at this point but it didn't and for the most part it felt like the game relaxed a bit. Maybe that was because it was clear the game was over though...
Randy took a bit of time to make a few decisions but despite that we finished the game rather quickly in just under 2 hours and were easily the first table done. Randy and I both had other events starting so we bid adieu to our opponents and ran to try to catch them. I felt a little bad about not helping to clean up fully after the game but it turned out they used that set for the finals immediately afterward anyway and I'm actually a little annoyed when people 'help' clean up my games. I'm a little obsessive compulsive and I have certain ways I like things put away, even if it's "throw everything in the box" like I do with Vegas Showdown. (As an aside, I got some really strange looks when I put Vegas Showdown away like that a couple years ago.)
Randy mentioned after the game that he recognized me from Magic, which surprised me. Woo!
Race for the Galaxy semis - I got to the room a little after the start time, but they were still milling around and I had plenty of time to get signed in. They ended up having 33 people show up, so they ran a quarterfinal round first. They ran 9 tables (6 4's and 3 3's) leading to 3 3 player semis and a 3 player final. I got randomly assigned to one of the 3 player games, with an opponent who was around 11. I proceeded to pick up 5 of the 6 goals and ran away with a large score to two small scores, which put me into the actual semis.
Once there I was paired up with someone I didn't recognize and David Platnick. Platnick is a good guy and an excellent game player who I've encountered several times at WBC over the years. (He beat me in the Notre Dame finals, I beat him in Agricola this year and a Puerto Rico quarterfinals that I can recall.) His first 4 cards were a blue world, a brown world, a green world, and diversified economy. He then started alternating between produce and consume-x2. I tried to end the game as soon as I could but he got to ship one too many times for me. I didn't end up with a single way to ship goods which was my downfall in this game I think. At one point early game I had the choice between settling a 2 cost blue world that drew me a card when it got a good on it and a 2 cost blue world that let me ship for 1 VP. There was a produce called that turn and I went for the immediate card (and Platnick didn't have diversified economy out yet so I didn't know the game was going to be constant producing) but didn't end up with a way to ship after that. The game was very close, I only lost by 4 or 5 points, which may have been enough with the one planet swap. (Though I do end up down a card in that case, so maybe I can't do the rest of what I did...)
At any rate, I can look back and find a mistake I made and Platnick played well so I can't complain about the outcome. Disappointing for sure, but understandable. I don't know how they did 4-6 seeding but since I got second in my game I hope I got one of those spots.
Playing two rounds of Race meant I missed the Wits & Wagers event. Pounder was in the Agricola semis and Robb was passed out so we didn't really have a team anyway. I think Rich Atwater was expecting us to go, which sucked that we abandoned him. 8(
Liar's Dice - I was 'supposed' to be playing the Vegas Showdown finals in this time slot but we all know how that worked out... So I got to take my swing at being the LIAR'S DICE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD! I showed up fairly early and actually found a table before they started unlike previous years. This meant I got to sit around for 15 minutes in a room full of bored gamers, many of whom had been drinking, all of whom had a cup with 5 dice in it. To say there was a bit of a din would be a mild understatement. The room was pretty synchronized, keeping a pretty steady beat with cup shakes. It was a little freaky. Eventually we got ready to start, but first the GM embarrassed a nice lady by getting the whole room (240ish people?) to sing her happy birthday. Then we were off!
My table featured, clockwise from myself, a teenage boy, a crazy guy from Japan, a teenage girl, her boyfriend, and an older man who I believe had been drinking. I knew the crazy Japanese guy from Titan tournaments of years past. The game got into a pretty good rhythm... The man on my right would make some ludicrously low bid like 2-5s. I'd bump it up to around expected value given my roll and the outstanding dice, say 9-4s. The kid to my left would up my bid by one. Then the Japanese guy would slam the die down in a jump shift and stare at the teen to his left. TWELVE SIX! It was awesome! He understood how the game was played! (I may have earned the Nick 'Two-Dice' Page with a similar strategy.) He said it with a lot of confidence and I guess he really convinced the girl on his left because she'd raised his bid by 1. Her boyfriend would then look at her like she was crazy and challenge. The first time she lost 4 dice, the second time she got knocked out.
I eventually lost a die to an exacta bid elsewhere at the table, but managed to get it down to 4-1-1. I was the 4, with the Japanese guy and the teenage boyfriend still alive as the 1s. I then got flustered by a 2 star bid on my right. I had a star... Do I challenge? Raise to 3 stars? Or do I bid 4 of something I have? If you assume a completely random dice split, and that Japanese guy will challenge no matter what he has then I have the following outcomes (out of 36 options):
8 - lose 1 die regardless
2 - lose 1 die if I challenge or bid stars
1 - lose 1 die if I challenge
16 - lose 2 dice if I bid anything
8 - lose 2 dice if I bid stars, lose 1 die if I bid 4s
1 - lose 2 dice if I bid stars
Bidding stars is strictly worse than bidding 4s, so I should exclude that option, simplifying the table to:
8 - lose 1 die regardless
3 - lose 1 die if I challenge
16 - lose 2 dice if I bid
8 - lose 1 die if I bid
1 - win regardless
From a strictly random standpoint, I should challenge. I lose 11/36th of a die instead of 40/36th of a die. But it's not completely random. Japanese guy's die is random, but the guy who bid looked at his die before choosing to jump to 2 stars. So, either he has a star and made a reasonable bid or he doesn't and made a risky bid (but one that put me in a tough spot, to be fair). The tables for each possibility are:
HAS STAR (out of 6)
4 - lose 1 die regardless
2 - lose 1 die if I challenge
HAS NO STAR (out of 30)
4 - lose 1 die regardless
1 - lose 1 die if I challenge
16 - lose 2 dice if I bid
8 - lose 1 die if I bid
1 - win regardless
So if he has a star, I lose a die if I challenge and 2/3rds of a die if I bid. If he doesn't, I lose 1/6th of a die if I challenge and 22/15ths of a die if I bid. Assuming his odds of making that bid without a star is p, then I lose (1-p)+p/6 if I challenge and 2(1-p)/3 + 22p/15 if I bid. Simplifying:
1-5p/6 VS 2/3+4p/5, which has an equilibrium point at p = 10/49
So, if he makes the bid without a star more than 20% of the time, I should challenge. If he makes that bid without a star less than 20% of the time, I should bid on. This ignores the fact that Japanese guy might somehow overbid me. (If I bid 3-4s and he has a 6, he might bid 3-6s. Remember, I think there are 2 stars after all by not challenging, and I have most of the information, so it might be right.)
At any rate I didn't go through any of that in my head. To be honest, I wasn't really thinking at all. I woke up early with not a lot of sleep and played a quarterfinal, 3 semifinals and a final. And the room was very boisterous, so I just went with it. I had a feeling he had a star and bid on. I got challenged, and lost 2 dice. I then lost another die, and got down to 1-all, but then I turned it on. We somehow blew the Japanese guy away and ended up me against the teen, with his bid first. He opened with 1-star. I didn't have a star, and I now knew he was willing to make such a bid without one. He was capable of putting the pressure on me, so I challenged him... And he had a 2! Woo!
Liar's Dice semifinal - They had 30ish winners who wanted to play on, so they had 6 semifinal tables with between 5 and 6 people at each. I was at a 5 player table, and was very quickly the first one eliminated from the semis. The first bid around had the guy on my right make a big bid of something I had a lot of. I raised him one, showed 3, and rerolled. I got challenged and it turned out the guy to my right had a 3 and 4 4s but bid a ton of 5s. I lost 4 dice I think. The next time around he had 5 of the thing he bid and I challenged him. Oh well.
Robb had woken up by this point so I'm pretty sure we went to Waffle House where I had Papa Joe's pork chops. Then we went back and played Beep Beep! and Kingsburg in open gaming.
It turned out the cleaning staff managed to puncture my air mattress this day, as it was flat as a pancake when we got back. Partially my fault since I brought too big of a mattress by accident and had to really wedge it between the beds (which were bolted to the floor so we couldn't even move them). So, I got to sleep on the floor the last two nights. I guess it didn't much matter, since I slept 15 hours this night.
Saturday
I woke up around 6pm and didn't much feel like playing anything. I think I was starting to get sick. I ended up sleeping through Ra! The Dice Game which made me a little sad, but oh well. 8 o'clock featured the Tigris and Euphrates semis and I figured I should go see if I made it with a win. Turns out some seconds advanced I think just to get the field up to 12. We played 3 4-player games with all the winners and the best second advancing to the final. Best second here is defined by number of extra treasures second needs to be given to end up winning.
My game featured a former champion, a finalist from the previous year, myself, and a guy from Oakville. We chose starting position based on seeding, which resulted in my picking 3rd after seats 1 and 3 were taken. (At WBC they play where the first two players only get 1 action instead of 2 on their first turn to try to balance starting positions more.) I decided to go 4th to get 2 actions on my first turn.
We played nice to start, with everyone making their own little kingdom and collecting a treasure. Despite picking 4th I got an area of the board with 3 treasures on it, and scooped up a second one a turn after my first. This gave me a reasonable lead I think, and I just focused on grabbing my current lowest number by playing tiles. Someone built a monument and I ninjaed my way into it, and then suddenly the game ended. The guy from Oakville connected up and grabbed the third last treasure, ending the game. My score was 5-5-5-4, which seems like a really low score. But my opponents score a 3, a 2, and a 2. Low fighting, near negligible monuments, and a very fast end to the game meant very low scores all around I guess. The guy who ended the game came second, and was 3 treasures behind me.
Unfortunately, it turned out that the much higher scoring games were also closer scoring games. They both needed 2 treasures, so my opponent came 6th overall and didn't make the final table.
Seeding for the finals was the round robin standings with the guy who came second forced to pick last. (Mental note: Play both rounds next year!) Due to how things worked out this meant I got to pick second. First choice chose 3rd, which was what I wanted. Now, do I want to go first with 1 action or last with 2? I won both my games from the 4 spot... So I chose 1st.
I made my first placement in the same area I did in my semifinals, thinking I could try to scoop two fast treasures again. The guy who went third (multi-time past champion, won both his heats) placed on one of the nearby treasures and made a bee-line for the third. Due to getting 2 actions he was going to get there the turn before I was going to, basically blowing me out of the game. (Well, the other 3 were going to get treasures and I wasn't. Maybe not blown out, but certainly disadvantaged.) I didn't have any green tiles at all, so I couldn't even hope to defend a merge. As such, I decided my only hope was to thrash around and make him regret attacking me. I used a disaster tile on his most recently played tile, preventing him from getting the contested treasure the next turn. I also edged closer so I could get it myself on my next turn unless he fought back. On his turn he fought back, edging even closer. By this point I had 5 red tiles in my hand, so on my next turn I paratrooped into his kingdom, blew up his green dude, and collected a treasure. All the while both of our opponents were actually establishing their own positions quite well.
Now, before the game I'd commented on how I really wasn't very good at the game and had never won before WBC. This may have been a mistake, as I think it's what caused him to think he could be aggressive against me for free points. Now, I don't really know the right strategies to win, but I can definitely handle small scale tactics. I think I proved this to him, as on his next turn he connected up our small joint kingdom to the 4th players kingdom, giving me a treasure and several green points in the process. He said this was a peace offering, and that seemed just fine by me. Really, what it meant was out joint kingdom was going to devour 4th player and we were going to split the points doing so. At this point my mindset switched from defend myself to score points for myself. I'm sure he wanted me to switch to score points for our team, but I'm mean and don't see any reason to throw points to someone else if I can avoid it.
Speaking of points, the player not involved in any of the attacking had built up a pretty large kingdom of his own. He had a monument immediately adjacent to his leaders, who were in a nice interleave formation. His black leader had 4 temples beside it, and all of his other leaders had 3. If we were going to break in, we were going to have to spend multiple disasters to do so. None of the 3 of us were willing to go first, though, so we let him run around uncontested.
He wasn't fighting though, so he was 'just' picking up 4 cubes a turn. We needed to have big fights on our side of the board to outscore him, or build our own monuments. My nemesis was really into the fighting and the 4th guy built a monument of his own. Unfortunately for him he messed up and wanted to build the same monument that was already on the board. As such, he had to build a monument missing a colour leader in the kingdom. I went next and dropped that leader in. I also dropped the other colour in because I had 5 red tiles in hand again, allowing me to grab monument points for a turn. No one hit me for a round, so I got them a second time as well. We were down to 3 treasures on board and a near empty bag, when the 4th guy made his move, attacking into my monument and blowing all my stuff off the board. In doing so he disconnected himself from the monument so he didn't get those points. He also connected up treasures, giving my nemesis a bonus treasure and ending the game before my turn, with an empty bag. If he doesn't make that play I should get 1 more turn and score my monument again. Also, my nemesis doesn't get an extra treasure.
Final scores? The guy left alone (Eric Freeman, he who beat me in the Vegas Showdown finals last year) - 7-7-9-10. Me? 7-7-7-8. My nemesis was 3rd but a fair ways back, and the 4th guy was last. One more cube of any colour and I win... So close!
In retrospect my opening move didn't have enough flexibility, allowing early aggression on my green leader when I had no green tiles to defend him. Maybe I should have gone 4th too, so I could see what everyone else wanted to do before I went. Tigris & Euphrates was a legacy event this year, which meant it gets multiple plaques despite not having the attendance to justify being more than a trial last year. In this case, plaques to the top 2, so I didn't come home empty handed this year. It joins my ever growing collection of second places, and this time in a game I don't claim to know a thing about.
The game went long, so I didn't get to play Slapshot. Robb, Pounder and I went back to Waffle House for an end of week celebration. Also, I had eaten Poptarts at 7pm as my only food for the day, so I needed calories. I went for the chocolate chip waffle drenched in strawberry campote. It's as bad as it sounds... But yet somehow good too. (Not like the omelette which was just bad.)
Afterwards we returned to the open gaming room and played a game of World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game. Much shorter than World of Warcraft: the Board Game, but not quite as good I don't think. Pounder then went to bed saying something about having to drive 8 hours the next day. Robb and I had no such things holding us back... One of us needed to stay awake to keep Pounder up but there were two of us this year so we could alternate naps!
Robb started playing a game of Hansa Teutonica while I went back to the room to check email and do some preliminary packing. I came down and watched the game finish, acting as gamemaster since the players were a little out of it. (Counting actions, tracking who's turn it was, praying for chicken dinner, etc...)
That game ended, but Robb and I still didn't want to sleep, so we went to the open gaming room and finally got in a game of TOBOGGANS OF DOOOOOOOOOOOM! Robb ran into a snowman and got stopped and I jumped the SHARK ATTACK! so the game did everything I wanted it to.
Around 6 we stumbled back to the room to sleep. I crashed on the floor again and was quickly sound asleep. I had a nightmare of some kind and woke with a start... I looked at the clock and saw it was almost 11am, which is checkout time. Robb and I assumed Pounder had set the alarm and I guess he hadn't...We quickly started a whirlwind tour of showering and packing and checking out. We managed to get packed and out only a little after 11, which was good enough for the hotel. Pounder had wanted to leave earlier so he wasn't going to drive as late, but it wasn't to be. Probably it was a good thing since he got a couple extra hours sleep in the bargain and he still got home around midnight I think.