Session Report: Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Society

I traveled to the Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Society for the first time yesterday, meeting a friend from Wisconsin who's in the process of moving to the Philadelphia area. I played seven games: Shadows Over Camelot, Turfmaster, Cloud 9 (three times), Puerto Rico and Texas Hold 'Em Poker. Shadows, a cooperative game about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, always impresses me. Players work together to complete various quests, such as defeating the black knight, recovering Excalibur, and fighting off the Picts and Saxons. One of the biggest problems is that there could very well be a traitor in the game.

At the start of the game, eight "role" cards are distributed among the players. One of the cards is labeled "traitor" while the other seven are marked "loyal." The traitor -- if there is one -- tries to do as much damage as possible to the group's effort without revealing himself. Discovering and unmasking the traitor is a big goal for the other players, as doing so can make it much easier to win the game.

Shadows Over Camelot is difficult to win even without a traitor. With a traitor, it becomes excruciating to do so. In our game, we had seven players. One was the traitor and was not uncovered until very late in the game. The loyal knights won this game, but not until after three of them (including me) were killed.

Turfmaster is a horse-racing game in which every player has the same deck of movement cards. The goal is to score the most points by placing well in three separate races. Die rolls also play a part in the game, and horses in first, second and third place have certain movement limits.

It was a decent game, but I enjoy Royal Turf more in the horse-racing genre (although I should point out that Royal Turf is a betting game, whereas Turfmaster simulates an actual race). For racing games in general I'd rather play Q-Jet 21xx (aka Ave Caesar) or Formula De.

Cloud 9 was tremendous fun. I'd never played it and didn't know quite what to expect, but now look forward to many more plays. It's a press-your-luck game -- a style that really hits my gaming sweet spot. Games like Can't Stop, Diamant, Liar's Dice and Pass the Pigs are other examples. Players are in a hot air balloon, scoring points for going higher and higher -- but if you stay in the balloon too long, you won't get any points.

Puerto Rico, the best game of all time according to The One Hundred, was next. I've only played about four times, so I'm pretty sure I was the least experienced player at the table. There's no question that this is a great game, but I admit to being a little intimidated when playing Puerto Rico veterans. The final scores showed that I'm right to be intimidated: 46-37-35-34-25 (that's me with 25).

We ended the night with an eight-player game of Texas Hold 'Em Poker. After two players had been eliminated by the same opponent, I decided that I needed to make a move. We started with $100 in chips, and I was down to $56. The leader probably had $275 or so. The big blind was only $6, and he raised to $20. I made him for A-x. So when I was dealt Q-Q (hearts, clubs), I moved all in and hoped that he didn't have A-A, K-K, or A-K. Maybe A-Q or A-J.

He called my all-in raise and flipped his cards to show... A-K, both spades. Well, not the worst possibility. At least I was still in the lead.

Then, the flop. I only remember one of the cards on the flop: A. (Well, I remember the suits as well: two hearts, one spade. One of my queens was a heart, so I had a really outside chance at a flush, as did he.)

The turn: Something low, but a spade. So it's down to the river, and I need a queen -- and not the queen of spades. Only the queen of diamonds will help me.

The river: Not the queen of diamonds.

It was a fun day and I look forward to playing with the folks at EPGS again, hopefully sooner rather than later.