All Aboard II
Your GM, Andy, for a second consecutive night takes players
on an Alan Moon train ride. This time 27 engineers join him on
the Santa Fe Rails. The first round consisted of seven
tables where the winners and one randomly selected second place
finisher would advance to the semi-finals. The runner-up was
selected at random due to the wide variations in scores due to
play style which can occur as you will see below. I will list
the range of scores from first to last for each game (with the
difference between first and second in parentheses) so everyone
can see what I am talking about.
Game
1: 189 to 158 (19)
Game 2: 182 to 133 (28)
Game 3: 167 to 123 (18)
Game 4: 159 to 128 (2)
Game 5: 130 to 96 (9)
Game 6: 107 to 63 (23)
Game 7: 102 to 66 (19)
We ended up adding another second place finisher to the semi-finals
as one of the winners had another commitment which they told
me about when their game finished; I appreciated that so I could
plan for it - thanks Chris.
In the semi-finals, there were two games of four with the
top two scorers from each game advancing to the final. These
games couldn't have been more different if the players had conscientiously
tried.
Semi 1: 211, 180, 178, 163
Semi 2: 102, 97, 92, 90
So the finals were set and the four intrepid engineers (Tom
DeMarco, Jeff Bakalchuck, Rob Kircher, and the GM) gathered around
the table for a third and final time this evening. The game was
a tight, tense, but very friendly game with no one seeming to
have a handle on who was ahead at any given time. There was a
lot of jockeying the different train lines for position especially
with all four short lines coming in and playing a major role
not only by connecting cities but as importantly in limiting
other railroads access to lines. In the end, I pulled out the
victory: 143, 134, 119, 100.
The best example of jockeying in the tournament was in the
first round when Frank Cunliffe lead a campaign with the other
players in his game to make it so that the green line would run
out of track one space short of Canada to prevent one of his
opponents from doubling his score there only to draw the other
Canada card on his next turn.
I would like to thank all the participants. I'm very happy
that the numbers worked out so that I could play too; not because
I ended up winning, but because I really enjoy this game and
had a great time playing with all my opponents who maintained
an absolutely fun atmosphere while doing their darndest to mess
with all their neighbors.
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