On Monday night, Ben was King of the Games. Owen was gone on a trip through the tornado infested land of Mississippi, so it was just the three of us. Without Owen our gaming equilibrium was thrown off causing all kinds of strange things to happen; such as Ben being crowned King of the Games.
Our first game of the night was the Ticket to Ride card game. Mike and I could not stop Ben from continually placing many cards in his on-the-track card pile. (These are the cards you use to complete your destinations at the end of the game.) At the end of the game, both Mike and I had trouble completing all of our destinations. That meant negative points for us. Ben on the other hand completed all of his destinations; even the extra ones he had taken. He trounced Mike and I who were battling to not be in last place. It was close, but I was not last.
Next we played Ingenious, a tile placement game where your score at the end of the game is your lowest score within all your colors. Let me explain. The board is made up of hexes. The pieces are two joined hexes and each hex of the playing piece contains a different color. (Each color also has its own symbol, but we’ll just talk colors for now.) The idea is to score points by placing a piece such that the colors on it lie next to already-placed pieces with the same color. In our game, Ben once again was able to score vast amounts of points in all colors, nearly completing his entire score card. This time I failed to beat Mike and ended up in last place.
The last game of the night was Kachina, another tile placement game. This time Alex, Mike’s son, joined us too. Oh, what an awful game I played. I was in last place the entire game–usually way behind everyone else. Ben and Alex vied for first place most of the game. Mike got the biggest score of the night, nine points, which I gave him because of my previous tile placement. As the game drew to an end, Mike and I were scurrying to not be beaten by a nine-year old! Oh, the shame. Ben eventually won. Mike ended up tying the nine-year old and I came in last…behind the nine-year old. Well at least I was beaten by the best.
Chaos Steve