E.B.G.G’s over easy

An article by Don Quixote

It’s a warm Tuesday morning and the happy glow of game night is still filling me inside. We had a great time last night as Bobby, Jon, Brian, Micelle and I enjoyed some evening board gaming.

Jon (always being the first to arrive) and I spent several minutes chatting about anime, Hero, and Asian cinema. Soon, Bobby and Brian arrived and we decided to play some filler games while we waited for Michelle to get home from class.

We decided to break out Royal Turf and do some horse race betting. Brian had never had a chance to play so we quickly filled him in on the rules. The game is pretty straight forward, there are seven horses (Othello � “the Dark Horse”, “Crunchy Crispy Creamy” Nougat, Mr. Red Fox, Caramello, Sahara Wind, Albino, and your friend and mine: Earl Grey) and one dice. The die has 4 symbols on it � a horse head (3 of the 6 sides), a riders hat, a saddle and a horse shoe. The players take turn rolling the dice and then moves one horse accordingly. The horse cannot be moved again until all other horses have been moved. Each horse moves differently depending on the symbol rolled. Each horse is cleverly balanced and they all have an equal chance of winning the race.

At the beginning of the race (there are three in total), players place 4 secret bets ranging from 0 to 2 (0, 1, 1, 2) in hopes that their horse might win and pay big. As an added bonus, the horse that reaches the 18th space on the track receives a hundred pound bonus.

After that the rolling starts. The best part about the game is the often touted phrase “Earl Grey for 1!” We had a great time. Jon managed to pull out some big wins in the 2nd race (having put some major money on the often abused Earl Grey) and took first. Brian, apparently no stranger to horse betting, came in a close second loosing by only a hundred pounds. I finished a distance third and Bobby, brought up the rear.

Michelle finally rolled in from class at 7:15 and we convinced her to join us for a game of Union Pacific.

Union Pacific is a classic German game of choices dressed in the guise of a train game. Ironically the game really isn’t about trains so much as it is about stocks and investing.

The game works like this, on a players turn, they can do the following: They start by drawing a track card (used to place trains), play a track card & place a train OR they can invest stock. If they choose to invest stock, they can do it one of two ways, they can either invest 1 share of stock from two different companies, or they can invest as many shares as they want from one company. If they placed a train then they can take a new stock card, if they invested, then they must discard a track card.

Sounds pretty simple, and it really is, it’s the choices that are dreadful. During the game there are four scoring rounds, the game ends after the fourth and final round. The way the scoring rounds work is like this: There are 10 train companies, each company has a different of trains and shares of stock. Every train placed on the board is worth 1 million dollars. Whoever has the most invested stock of a company is the primary share holder and gets the full value. Whoever owns the second most gets half the value. If someone is the sole stock holder, then he gets both the primary and secondary share holders money. If there is a tie, the two stock holders split the value.

Again, it all seems pretty easy, but those darn Germans just make it worse. The scoring rounds are randomly dispersed through out the deck. The only thing you can count on is that there isn’t a scoring round in the first 6 stock cards, only 1 in the next 18, and somewhere in the last part are the 3. The could all be in a row, evenly spaced, or even the very last card of the game. You never know when they are coming. That’s where the tension comes from. You need shares of stock to control companies, but cannot control the company unless you invest. If you invest, then you cannot pick up shares of stock that round, but every stock you pick up brings you one card closer to a scoring round, a scoring round that you need shares of stock to be invested for.

It was a truly wonderful game that took us late into the night, but in the end, Brian won by 7 million dollars, I came in second, Michelle third, Bobby fourth and Jon came in last.

All in all it was again a great time.

See you all in two weeks.