Friday, July 7th San Juan

Wedding dust was still clearing, with the last of the Norwegians leaving town today. Az, who couldn't make it to the ceremony due to work commitments at Origins in Ohio, was going to be on his way through town, headed for the Coldsnap pre-release in Des Moines, to judge. He stopped in to grab some chow, and just hang out a little.

The good people at MidAmerican Energy let me off early, so that I could go hang out with the windy city nomad. We grabbed some lunch at Jimmy Jack's, and, with bellies full of bbq, picked up a couple games and headed over to CHG.

We sat and chatted with Jerod for a bit, and then launched into a 2-player game of San Juan. Az seemed to have a strategy pretty well worked out for this, apparently having played and discussed the game with the crowd up in Madison, who will really take a game apart trying to figure out correct play. I, on the other hand, hadn't played in some time, and couldn't really remember too much about formulating an overall strategy.

Az went straight into building purple. He never built a production building the whole game, and only produced/traded off my plays. His goldmine drew hima few extra cards, and he also made good use of an early (forgot the name-lets you keep two on the counselor). However, I got the only library in the first run through the deck, which was quite an advantage. I built coffee and silver, and traded every other round for lots of cards. I also drew one of each big building, and played them all to end the game. I was a little worried as Az had a lot of cards under his chapel(?), but ending the game and scoring all the big building points pulled it out for me.

Az was pretty tired from his night shift job, and took this time to head out West to DM. When I saw him on Sunday, it didn't look like the set was all that impressive. I think my Magic hibernation will continue a while longer...

GG, GL