Fresh Fish - possibly the first time played with the Friedmann Friese rules. Plenary made one terrible change (about auction wins in ties) and this minor one, where cubes can only be placed next to other cubes or to streets. This lead to a very different game as no-one started near the harbour, and so we were all a bit scared to pull tiles. The linear tactics let me set up a virtual wall across the middle of the board. I played my usual game of trying to stick everyone else with at least one long route, and had a long cat and mouse with Andrew until he blinked and ended up with mail order games shop. I may have had some random collateral benefit from Tommy’s plays.

Shazamm - wow - two favourites in a night! Doesn’t get much better. Rating up a titch to 9. Tommy was a worthy opponent with a big spending style. The first game went 5 rounds which is almost impossible, but we accomplished it, only for me to finally topple into the lava. My cry for “best of three” was heeded, and a combo of bad draws plus forgetting to wear his tinfoil hat saw Tommy unceremoniously waltzed lava-wards in two short games.

Die Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsburg - clearly this has to be renamed “Brainfart - the devil’s work!”. Paul was convinced of his alliance buddies Al and Jeff, and was so blatant I saw it too in the first or second round. Hence I couldn’t understand why Tommy (who by elimination must be in my team with Brian) keep stabbing me to help Alex: I thought it was some weird newbie thing - or maybe metagaming from Shazamm…. Brian and I fought valiantly but two vs four never had a chance, even when Jeff or Alex blocked Paul ‘cos they thought maybe he was an insane genius and somehow his hurting Brian and me was maig us stronger… very funny. Paul really took that “keep your enemies closer” thing to heart..