Savannah, Georgia
August 1 – 4, 2002
Thursday
After driving most of the night, we arrived in Savannah around 10 in the morning, napped a bit, then hit the game room in the afternoon.
DrahTSEILAKT
For my first game of Gulf Games in Savannah I played the tightrope game by Reiner Knizia. Frank Branham, Sandi West, Joy Mills and Stven Carlberg played with me. Stven, Frank and Sandi finished very close, Sandi winning with 12 points to Frank’s 13 and Stven’s 16. Joy and I took a lot of sticks in the last two rounds and trailed by quite a few points.
Puerto RICO
I gladly jumped into this excellent resource management game as soon as the dust settled from the tightrope game. My partners at the table included Joe Huber, Frank DiLorenzo, Jay Jones and Jon Pessano. Joe won the game. He had about 6 corn plantations and was making a lot of money at the trading house.
Final Scores: Joe-60, Me-41, Jay-40, Frank-34, Jon-32
SchotTEN TOTTEN
One of my favorite Knizia card games followed, against my daughter Jeanette. She has recently begun to understand the strategies in this game and has beaten me the last two times we played. Not this time, however, as I scored my first win of Gulf Games 10, 5 stones to 4. A very close game that wasn’t decided until after we had exhausted the draw deck.
BohnANZA
Jeanette and I were joined by my son Nick and by Richard and Toni Glanzer. I think Toni was just learning how to play. In fact, this may have been her first game of Bohnanza. I won the game with 13 points. I think Jeanette and Richard were tied with 12 points apiece.
After the Bohnanza game we had supper. Games I played after supper:
Take IT EASY
According to my notes the tournament was Thursday. Or I was out of sequence with my page numbering. I had the high score at our table, 126 points. Also at my table: Stven & Willela Carlberg, Nick, Sam and Allison Vander Ark and Kyle Berg. Sandy Kurzban won the tournament with somewhere around 200 points.
KupfERKESSEL CO.
I finally got a chance to play with Kevin Whitmore, one of my online acquaintences that I was really looking forward to meeting for the first time at Gulf Games. I taught him this game of memory and movement, then proceeded to beat him in both games. Sorry, Kevin.
Squint
I played this fun game twice. It’s sort of like Pictionary but you are using card to depict your clue. The cards have different “doodles” on them, and you combine them into pictures and try to get people to guess your clue. I really enjoyed the game. At the table in the first game: Elaine Lohroff, Craig Berg (who won), Steve Kurzban, Theresa Vander Ark, Michael Adams, Chris Lohroff and Sandy Kurzban. The Kurzbans left for the second game, but Gail Schloesser joined. I won the second game.
FRIDAY
TyCOON
My first game of the day was a new one for me, Tycoon. This is a Wolfgang Kramer about building hotels and factories in 9 different cities. I really enjoyed the game, even if I didn’t quite understand the best strategy and ended up losing badly.
Final scores: Peter Mc Carthy 130, K-Ban 125, Joe Huber 100, Me 79.
DAS AMULETT
This is one of Theresa’s favorite games, and I really like it as well. We played with Ty Douds (who won), Kenny Douds, and K-ban. Not sure about final score, but it was pretty close until Ty pulled away in the last round.
Crokinole
Theresa and I faced off in the Crokinole tournament against Kevin Whitmore and Jeffrey Glanzer. We lost.
Medieval MERCHANT
A game I was eagerly looking forward to playing with Kevin. We had emailed each other before Gulf Games to set up a time to play it. I had played once before, but was unsure of the rules. Kevin has played it quite a bit, and was glad to teach the game. We were joined by Michael Adams. I wish I could remember my strategy in this game, because I ended up winning by a very comfortable margin.
TraumFABRIK
My first chance to play the Reiner Knizia game of movie production. Joe Huber had also never played it before. We were instructed by Chris Lohroff and James Miller. James ended up winning the game. I enjoyed it, but felt like the outcome was influenced too much by the randomness of the face down tiles. I’d play the game again, but do not feel like it’s a game I need to purchase.
RussELBANDE
Theresa and I learned this game this past spring when visiting Mark & Shari Jackson in Nashville. I fell in love with the game, both the wonderful acrobatic pigs and the neat racing mechanism, so I managed to secure my own copy. I’m glad I took this to Gulf Games, as it got played a lot during our time in Savannah. Friday evening I played 4 times. 3 with my daugher Allison, and in the final game we were joined by Colin Mc Carthy, Mike Adams and Bill Batty.
Liar’S DICE
Sandi Kurzban and I were talking near the game table and she commented that she didn’t know how to play Liar’s Dice. It’s not a game I play all that often, but since the tournament was scheduled for the next morning I felt like I ought to try to help her out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember all the rules. I did try to teach her, and was joined by Jay Jones, who remembered the things I didn’t (like most of the rules!), so the 3 of us played a game. Jay ended up winning.
Frisch FISCH
Richard Glanzer brought this game along hoping to learn how to play it. Joe Huber agreed to teach him, and I gladly joined as I wanted to learn as well. Also at the table were Stven Carlberg and Jay (I think. I can’t read my writing here). I believe Joe won, but I’m not sure (water on the notes made the ink run). What a good game! I’d love to find a copy, but since it was such a limited edition the price for a copy is very high. I doubt I’ll ever find one. But I am very grateful to Richard for taking his copy and letting us use it.
Plem PLEM
This is one of the silliest games I’ve ever played. In part it’s because of the game itself, which is a pile of silliness packed into a box. As Al Newman described it, it’s a bunch of drinking games all in one game. But also, the silly players I played with made this a memorable gaming experience as well. I played with Al, James Miller, Craig Berg, Chris Lohroff, Michael Adams and Ted Cheatham. I have no idea who won…or what my name is (inside joke. If you have played Plem Plem, you’ll understand).
ConcertO GROSSO
Time for more silliness. The orchestra consisted of Sheldon Smith, Ted Cheatham, James Miller, Chris Lohroff, Laura Smith, Craig Berg, Michael Adams, Jeffrey Glanzer, Richard Glanzer, Al Newman and myself. Laura was the first to go out, followed by me.
SATURDAY
PompEJI
I started the day out teaching this game to Leon Hendee. Pompeij is a game from Adlung that came out last fall where you try to construct the streets of the city of Pompeij. You score each turn based on the point value of the card you lay in relation to cards already on the table that match it, both in color and in building type. As the game progressed Leon commented that it reminded him somewhat of the game called M, which he agreed to teach me after we were finished with our game of Pompeij. Leon won the Pompeij game, and we were joined by Kevin Whitmore for M.
M
An interestng tile laying game where you try to match edges of the tiles you lay (unlike Pompeij, where you are not allowed to have any matching edges when you play a card). I like the game well enough to have added it to my “want” list.
GoldLAND
This is a game I was eagerly looking forward to playing. Stven Carlberg has a special fondness for the game, and he ended up winning this one. Also at the table were Larry Levy and Shanna Labranche. I’m not sure what I did wrong (other than play with these sharks!), but I had a terrible time in this game, losing by almost 20 points. I need to play this one again soon to try to better learn the game.
Africa
I’m one of the fans of this game. It’s not my favorite Knizia game, but I do enjoy it and was glad to have a chance to play it. Joe Huber taught the game to Richard & Toni Glanzer. Also at the table was Larry Levy. I’ve played the game a lot, but it didn’t seem to help, as Joe and Larry tied for the win.
How RUCK
James Miller taught me the new Kosmos game about a Scottish tug of war. The card splitting mechanism was different. You race your opponent to split your half of the cards into a pile to keep and a pile to give away. Then you play your deck one at a time on either side of the rope. I’m not sure how the card splitting mechanism fits in with the theme of the game, but I think it would be easier with English cards. I would have liked to try it again with the ” Joe Huber” variant, where you can’t play on your opponent’s side of the rope. I might get the English version when it comes out, but it doesn’t strike me as something I’d play all that often, so I may pass on it. James won the game.
PROTOTYPE
I played one round of my prototype trick taking game with James Miller and Al Newman. James won the round. I appreciated the comments I got on it.
DayTONA 500
I played two rounds of this with Stven Carlberg, Leon Hendee and Sam Vander Ark. Unfortunately, we had to terminate the game early (not sure why any more…supper time maybe?). I’ll apologize again for that, I wish we had been able to finish that game (especially since I was leading when we ended our game).
TransAMERICA
I played this after supper with Kay Jones, Theresa, Shanna Labranche, Kim McCarthy and Susan Rozmariek. Kay, Susan and I ended in a 3 way tie.
Too Many COOKS
I played this at some point on either Saturday or Sunday. I don’t remember who was in our game, other than Greg Schloesser, who taught the game. I do know that I was leading until the final hand, when I self destructed.
FRECHE FROSCHE
This is a very difficult memory game about frogs and lilly pads. The tiles are not rectangular, and they are spread out face down on the table in an irregular pattern. This makes it extremely difficult to remember what is where. I played against Frank Branham and Josh Kurzban. Frank won the game.
Foppen
This game was one of my favorites of Gulf Games. It’s a trick taking game by Friedemann Friese, who also designed Frisch Fisch. Each trick one player will play the worst card to the trick. That player sits out the next trick. The round ends when one player runs out of cards, and cards still in your hand count against you. This means that the fewer times you play the worst card in the trick the better you do. I played with Richard Glanzer, Ken Girton and Shanna Labranche. Ken ended up winning with +4 points. Richard was in second with -10 points, Shanna had -56, and I had -89 (after a disaster in the second hand that I never recovered from).
VIVA PAMPLONA
It was getting very late, but I was glad to get into another game. This time it was the Wolfgang Kramer game about the running of the bulls. I played with Henry Hunger, Joy Mills, Stven, Peter McCarthy and Jim Cobb. I don’t know who won, but it wasn’t me.
RussELBANDE
Why not play a kid game at 3 in the morning with a bunch of grown ups? We had a great time. I was joined by Jim, Joy and Stven. No notes on who won this one. Too late.
SUNDAY
VollDAMPF
I only played one game during the official Gulf Games part of Sunday. This was mainly because I was so tired from Saturday night, but also because we took so long getting through this one because of interruptions, etc. I played Volldampf with Kevin Whitmore, Leon Hendee, Lenny Leo, Peter Mc Carthy and Larry Levy. I believe Larry won with Kevin one point behind, but they may have tied. I think the game took a bit over 3 hours to complete because of all the interruptions.
After the closing cermonies and goodbyes, I napped to recover from my marathon Saturday. I then played quite a few games in the hotel lobby with some of the others who were staying late. My notes are very sketchy, but I remember playing Too Many COOKS at least one more time, also SchnAPPCHEN JAGD and Kathai with Joe Huber and James Miller. Also I played SAIL AWAY with Henry Hunger. This is a very old yacht racing game with wonderful metal ships. The rules need some clarifications, and I think I’ll try to do this before our next Gulf Games in February because it’s a game that would work very well with simpler rules.
Well, that’s it for games I played in Savannah. My notes are not necessarily totally accurate, and I’ve been too busy to get this written until now, several weeks after the event, so my memory is probably not totally reliable as well. Thanks again to all who played with me and my family. Apologies to anyone I played with that I missed in these notes.
I can’t wait for February when we’ll see most of you again in Birmingham.