He’s got a ticket to ride…

3 January 2012

We had a bumper attendance and split into two groups: one playing Power Grid and the other Ticket to Ride.

So close, and yet so far...

We (Daniel, Peleg, Ofer, and I) started with the European version of Ticket to Ride. It was a first for Ofer, but he picked the game up without any difficulty. Peleg started well, but ran into a brick wall with a shortage of Locomotives, needing just one more to complete his big ticket. Daniel covered all the bases well and secured the bonus for longest network, but the game finished a couple of turns too early, and that left him short on a ticket. I was happy: I had completed all my tickets, and forced the game end. However, Ofer had picked up more tickets and completed them (using up one station), and he won by one point. A great start for Ofer.

Daniel, Ofer and I then had a go at the Scandinavian version – great for two or three players – and managed a complete game from setup to scoring inside an hour. Daniel grabbed the 9 route and its 27 points ahead of the rest of us. Ofer and I were scrabbling over the same routes, it seemed, in the south. The game turned when I started picking up tickets. I did this on three rounds, keeping six extra tickets, and completed them all. (It helped that half were routes I had already connected.) Even taking off the points which Ofer’s routes had blocked me from scoring, the 50+ points for completed tickets and most tickets ensured the win. Daniel finished second and Ofer third.

Two good games. As they used to say in the city of my birth: “Ye cannae whack it.” (Translations available on request.)