Blue and Pink were, unexpectedly, joined by Green and Lilac thanks to a clock-reading malfunction.  So while Blue and Pink were dealing with their dinner, Green introduced Lilac to Tsuro.  This is a very accessible game that we actually managed to play a little over a year ago from home, but is much better played in person.  Each player starts with a stone lined up on the edge of the board and a hand of three tiles.  On their turn, they place one of their tiles on the board next to their stone, and move their stone along the path on the tile, then replenish their hand.

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The aim of the game is to stay on the board the longest, with the last player remaining, the winner.  It wasn’t long before Lilac had Green on the ropes and Blue and Pink urged her to take her chance and finish him off.  It’s not in Lilac’s nature to go for the jugular, however, and despite the encouragement, she didn’t make the most of her opportunity.  Inevitably, Green wriggled free and it wasn’t long before he was edging Lilac off the board himself.  With the first game over, and Blue and Pink finishing their dinner, there was a little chatter before others arrived and players were deciding what to play.

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The “Feature Game” was to be Modern Art, which is an auction game where players are buying and selling art trying to make a profit with paintings valued by the number of artworks of that type that were sold.  It is an older game, nearly thirty years old, and several people had played it before, albeit some years ago.  When Green admitted that he hadn’t really enjoyed it, Pink was shocked and suggested that not liking Modern Art was akin to not liking puppies, at which point Green, much to Pink’s horror, admitted he wasn’t that keen on them either…

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Needless to say, when settling on games, Green took himself away from the slightly offended Pink and his copy of Modern Art leaving him (with his brick and sack comments), to play the “Feature Game” with Ivory, Blue and Teal.  The game is a simple, yet clever auction game, and therein lies the problem—the group has had mixed responses to auction games.  For example, the highly regarded Ra (like Modern Art designed by Reiner Knizia) received mixed responses when that was played, however, one of the all-time favourites, Keyflower, is an auction game at its heart (though to be fair it doesn’t really feel like one).

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The group (aside from Pink) was therefore slightly reticent, but went for it positively, and in the event, really enjoyed it.  Each round consists of several auctions, each of which is conducted by a player.  The auctioneer chooses one card from their hand which is auctioned according to the indicator on the card.  There are five possible auction types:  Open, Fixed Price, Sealed Bid, Once Round the Table, and Double (where two pieces by the same artist are offered at the same time).

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We were playing with the new Oink Games version, which features real modernist artwork from the likes of Mondrian, Kaminski and Ivory (who obviously has talent we were hitherto unaware of).  When the fifth work by an artist is offered for sale, the round ends (without the final auction), and the works valued.  The value depends on how many paintings were sold by that artist in the round, with the value increasing by $30,000 for the most popular.  Players then sell their art to the bank, but here there is a catch.  Players only get a return on art by the three most popular artists in that round—everything else is worthless.  The value of the art that is sold, however, is the cumulative total including increases over all the previous rounds.

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Thus, players sell their art giving them money to buy more, and more expensive art in the next round. Although the mechanics are clever, what makes the game fun is the auctioneer’s pitch as they try to describe the work they are selling and draw the other players’ attention to its clear and obvious assets and up-sell it.  One notable lot by Kaminski was initially described as “a cat’s pencil sharpener” and then to much hilarity as “a charming number depicting someone bending over picking up a fiver.”  The game ends after four rounds and the player with the most money at the end wins.

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This time, players clearly had a bit of a fixation with Kaminski with his works being the most popular in the first round, with Hick and Mondrian making a distant second and third.  The initial popularity of Kaminski inflated the perceived value of his work in the second round and, although fewer works were offered for sale, it still scored, though the Mondrian age was upon us.  The third round was dominated by the works of Okamoto, putting in a brief, but valuable appearance for those that made purchases, as it provided funds for the all-important final round.  This led to a resurgence of Hick as the most popular together with poor Ivory, who’s work had hitherto only had a brief period in the limelight in the second round.

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The eternal popularity of Kaminski continued until Blue brought the game to an end with a double auction ensuring Kaminski’s works gave a return again, and having scored in every round, they were very lucrative.  Despite the game feeling like there was a lot of ebb and flow, the final scores were remarkably close with a mere twenty grand between first and third—fine margins indeed in a game where the scores were measured in hundreds of thousands and players reserves fluctuated wildly during rounds.  It was Blue though, who made the most, finishing with $392,000, just ahead of Ivory (the gamer rather than the artist).

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Meanwhile, at the other table, Green, Lilac, Purple and Black (who also expressed a dislike of Modern Art, though not of puppies), were playing the puppy related game, Snow Tails.  This is a fun race game where players are racing dog sleds along a winding track of varying complexity.  The idea is that players have a hand of cards, which they play to adjust the dogs’ speed or apply the brake.  When they play cards, they can play up to three (one for each dog and one for the brake), but they must all have the same value.  The sled speed (how many spaces it moves) is then the sum of the dogs’ speed minus the value on the brake.

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Additionally, the sled will drift left or right by the amount by which the two dogs’ speeds differ.  Players have to use this to negotiate corners and slalom round pine trees to get to the finish line.  The cards come from their own personal decks, and this is where the game gets clever because players have to manage the cards they play to make best use of them.  If a player crashes or goes into a corner with too much speed and exceeds the limit, they pick up a dent card.  These occupy space in the player’s hand which means they have less choice.

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The first player to cross the line (or, in the case of a tie cross it and travel the furthest), is the winner.  The group spent far too long debating which track to use. Lilac had not played Snow Tails before so the group did not want to make it too extreme, but also not too trivial for everyone else.  In the end the group decided on a variation of “Treemendous” (chosen as it would fit on the “narrower than we would like” pub table) and swapping the first set of trees for a narrow canyon.  Through random selection, Lilac was chosen as start player, but as she wasn’t sure how the game would play she took a gentle start so Purple, Green and Black shot past her at speed.

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Through the first corner and approaching the Canyon, Purple hit the side of the track and slowed up, while Green and Black raced forward. Lilac took her foot off the break and caught Purple, who was struggling to get her head around which side of the sled needed the higher number to move to the right to get around the corner.  With the bend successfully negotiated Black slowed for the canyon, but Green decided to let rip through it. He made it in one go without hitting anything, but was on the outside for the next corner.  Black took a steadier run through the canyon and came out on the inside of the corner behind Green.

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Lilac also maintained a steady pace taking a couple of turns for the Canyon, while Purple continued to dally at the back, hampered somewhat by her reduced hand size from her earlier crash. Black and Green raced to the forest, with Black reaching it just before Green. He “dropped an anchor” and came to an almost complete stop at the entrance right in front of Green, causing him to slow up sharply and swerve to the left instead of taking the route ahead he had planned.

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Black managed to clear the forest first but found himself drifting towards the outside of the long hairpin bend. Green was close behind, but his direction of travel sent him to the inside.  Lilac continued her steady progress, avoiding the hazards and came through the forest unscathed in the middle of the track.  Black and Green were racing hard:  Black had the speed, but was forced to the outside of the track and wasn’t able to make progress while Green going more slowly on the inside, manage to squeeze past to get just ahead.  Then it was a straight fight to the line.

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Black was able to lift his break to a one, but could only manage a double four, so he positioned himself less advantageously to try and block Green. It didn’t work as Green came off the corner on another track, but he was a little heavier on his break, so still on a two, and also a double four, Black managed to just slide past for the win finishing just ahead.  Lilac continued her steady progress and finished the following round while Purple took a more leisurely ride through the forest, came out on the outside of the bend.  Struggling to stay on the track on the way round the corner, she finally found her speed down the final straight and came flying off the end of the track, unfortunately a couple of rounds too late to win.

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Snow Tails was still going when Modern Art finished, but only just, so Tsuro got a second outing of the evening.  This time, Blue was out first by killing herself and taking her piece off the board, quickly followed by Pink who committed harakiri in a similar fashion.  That left them to cheer on Teal and Ivory.  It was close and they were down to the last few tiles, but in the end, Teal took victory when he pushed Ivory off the board.  As the huskies settled down for a well-earned nap, Pine arrived just in time for one last game of Bohnanza, replacing Green and Lilac who went home as they had an early start the next day.

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Bohnanza is one of our old favourites, and barely even needs a reminder beyond the rules that are specific for the particular player count.  With six, players start with different numbers of cards, they plant one or two beans turn over two bean cards from the deck, plant and trade, then draw four cards to replenish their hand.  Buying a third bean field is cheaper as well with six, costing two Bohnentaler instead of three.  This is important because the game is shorter with more players and some players barely get a turn in the final round.

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As a result, buying a third field is always a bit risky, and the general consensus is that it is rarely worth it. This time was the exception that proves the rule however, with lots of people deciding to buy a third field.  This had the unintended effect of shortening the game as more beans were left in fields at the ends of the rounds.  This didn’t stop the usual hilarity when people made the occasional silly trades and players got unfeasibly lucky with the draw of the cards.  This time the winner was Ivory, two Bohnentaler ahead of Pine, but in truth, we are all winners with a game that is so much fun.

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Learning Outcome: It is amazing how much money people will spend on tat.