Scrabble, Uno Stacko, Puerto Rico, Bohnanza !!!

Four players. Four games. Four golds.

Ironman. Sleepy Jedi. Sunrise. Swedish.

Scrabble and Uno Stacko were played on Tuesday Night. Puerto Rico and Bohnanza Last Night!

SCRABBLE
I had an amazing Scrabble game actually. I knew it would be a fight between me and Dawn although I never really expected to win. I believe our vocabulary range is roughly equal but she can spot the placements far better. But somehow or rather I was leading most of the way and I was kinda surprised. Especially the fact that I felt I was having too much fun!

Nonsense I did:
1. Getting distracted by a number of good-looking gals passing by (not to mention Shaz sounding me for doing so during my turn, which cracked the crowd up!). Hey, I had the best seat!
2. Asking the judge if Dawn was allowed to do the killer looks she was giving me (Ha ha!). Answer: Of course she was!
3. Throwing Ian coquettish glances (tactic learnt from Locs!)
4. Discussing with Swedish about Chen's solo activities in the shop. Swedish even went on to predict successfully what Chen would do next!
5. Screwing myself in the final turn of the game by challenging Dawn's ES!!!

Not to mention Ian's hilarious attempts at plugging the Z in every space for all its worth!

Result. I said mostly, I was leading throughout the game. Mostly....

Yeah, Nonsense No.5 cost me the game, allowing Dawn to finish with a slight lead! But I couldn't really be upset about it coz I just had WAY too much fun!!! So silver for me!

Status:
Azmin 2 g 2 silver
Dawn 2 g 1 silver

Uno-Stacko

Forget gold, as long as I got one medal I knew I'd be content with any medal, what with my shaky nervous fingers! I insisted we play this next because I thought we would all screw up quickly. Funnily, the only person who screwed up quickly was me!!!

Yes folks I was first one eliminated, getting too hasty! After that, I joined the commentator box with Ahmad (commentating in Malay) and Triona (English). Me? In Indonesian of course, ha ha!
And I was definitely amazed, coz the game went for ages once I was out of the picture. I was totally impressed by Ian who seemed to pull the tiles out so easily he almost looked lazy at the same time!

Swedish had to eliminate himself next coz a schoolfriend of his had disappeared and he had to help look for her!?? In the end it came down to Ian and Dawn, and Ian's casualness finally got the better of him as a wrong move collapsed the structure!

Two Golds for Dawn!!!! In a night! Congrats!

So now the status after 5 games was:

Dawn 3 g 1 s
Azmin 2 g, 2 s

Swedish and Ian had 1 silver each and shared the bronzes.

Thursday came...

Puerto Rico!

I needed to win this. I knew I was good at this, but only in certain strategies. Fortunately, I got off to a good start, with a solid building strategy and never looked back. I was rather alarmed at the rate of Dawn's corn shipping though (with the awesome hospice strategy which I can't seem to frickin' figure out!), and her victory points were stacking up really high. I had to steal her building (the customs house I think) to prevent her from zooming to victory!

In the end, me and Dawn tied for 1st place at 57 points. BUT I had 5 more doubloons (coins)!!! So I stole the gold!!

Status of Azmin-Dawn war:
Azmin 3 g 2 silver
Dawn 3 g 2 silver (Tied!!!)

And finally:

Bohnanza

Not exactly a game I master. And at the start of the game, I felt I was so behind. I kept making the wrong decisions, and ended up burning bean field after bean field without getting money. Not to mention some inane bad luck drawing cards. It got to an extent that by the end of the 1st round (of 3) I was bashing my head against the glass walls of the shop in frustration!!!

During the 2nd round, I decided that begging for help from the deck would be a good idea, and amazingly, it seemed to work! I started getting what I wanted, and was able to pull some favourable trades, but I had to admit I never thought I would be in the contest for 1st place.

Yet at the end, Swedish had 16 coins, Ian had 17, Dawn had 20 and I had.......20!!!

Talk about tight competition!! Urk...

We had to find some way of breaking the tie and we both weren't keen on having it decided by chance. After a while of searching for the rule book (which was accidentally shoved into the Puerto Rico box by Yours Truly) , we read the rules of the 2-player game and fought it out. There was quite a bit of confusion at first but we soon settled in.

After an intense, concentrated duel, I was able to pull out the win. I was fairly lucky though, but I'll take a win from luck anytime, no prob!!

That took our current medal tally to:

Azmin: 4 g 2 silver
Dawn: 3 g 3 silver

While Ian and Swedish had 1 silver each and still shared the bronzes.

7 games down, 8 to go, it's getting hot!!!

(Phew, marathon post guys!)