Games Played April 22, 2006

One key to happiness – GAMES

Mason and Natalia weren’t with us for this day of gaming, so the wins didn’t count on our records. The rest of us did, however, have fun.

Our first game was Ticket to Ride, which is very popular with our family these days. Results: Katrina first; Joel second; Dan third; Sue fourth; me last.

We had not played Canyon for quite some time, so I included it in the “game bag.” It uses essentially the same card play as Oh Hell (called The Bidding Game in our family), so we are familiar with that part of it. We modified the scoring mechanism to fit our style of play, however. We believe players should get the same credit for correctly assessing a hand of low cards as for a hand of high cards. So, we do not give more credit for bidding and winning more tricks. The important thing to us is bidding and catching the correct number of tricks. If a person is dealt low cards, he/she should have the same opportunity to move down the river as someone who got high cards. So, our scoring mechanism is this: Correct Bid moves 4 spaces; Bid Missed by One moves 2 spaces; Bids Missed by More than One move 1 space. In the rapids, our scoring is: Correct Bid moves 2 spaces. We find this makes the game much more balanced than the rules included with it. Results: Joel first by a wide margin; Dan second; Sue and me tied for third; Katrina last.

We almost always include a game of Bohnanza, and this was no exception. Results: Joel and Sue tied for first; Dan third; me fourth; Katrina last.

We had a limited time left in the afternoon, so we played two games of For Sale. Results of the first game: Katrina and Sue tied for first; me third; Dan fourth; Joel last. Results of second game: Dan first; Katrina second; Sue third; Joel and me tied for fourth.


--- Gerald … near Denver, Colorado; April 2006
aka gamesgrandpa -- A grandpa who is a mile high on gaming