Pitch Cars and Jack Tars

Actually, Jack Tar is a sailor, not a pirate, but it's late...

As we enter the last month of the season, five eager players arrived at Chez Sam for the night's entertainment. Adam was to have been there but he had to attend someone's birthday do. A fact he only learnt during the email exchanges on Monday to ascertain who was going to turn up.

We began in a light-hearted mode with a game that Sam received as a birthday present that's suitable for small children as well as adults. Me, Sam, Joe and Quentin decided to play Pitch Cars while waiting for Jonny. In this game, you have to flick wooden disc "cars" around a track. It began jovially enough, but before long our innate competitiveness crept in.

Suddenly, we were lining up shots like snooker players and cursing our luck on unexpected kinks in the road or a crash barrier. In fact, during our two races Joe and Sam managed to get stuck for three goes in one place. The winning tactic seems to be get in the lead and then don't make any mistakes.

Race One
1. Quentin
2. Andrew
3. Joe
4. Sam

Race Two
1. Sam
2. Andrew
3. Quentin
4. Joe

During race two Jonny arrived so, after we finished, we settled down for something a little more involved. We chose newbie Rum and Pirates. Sam explained the rules – except for a brief interlude where he had to go and clean up some cat sick – and we leapt right in. To the game. Not the cat sick.

This game based around a pirate's life (beating up guards, politely declining invitations to the pub and having pillow fights for best sleeping places) is a lot of fun. When Sam and I played it a week or so ago, it did seem as if it would be more fun with more people. And it was, but perhaps five people was too many. It turned out to be quite a long game. I wasn't sure about any tactic, but going to the pub seemed to be a good move. Again, I did badly getting good sleeping berths in the ship, which might have been costly.

I miscounted the number of rounds and thought the penultimate round was the last. So I ended round four smugly with a move that completed a treasure map and set me up for a decent result. When I learnt there was another round, I didn't really know what to do. As it was, we ended with a dead heat, even after a recount. Joe scoured the instructions for a tie breaker, but none was forthcoming, so we rejoiced in their joint victory.

1= Quentin 73
1= Joe 73
2. Andrew 67
3. Jonny 61
4. Sam 53

It's a whirl of excitement on the form table as Quentin leaps from seventh to first. Adam holds on to second despite not turning up, and both Joe and I improve our standings. Jonny's score goes down by one because he got rid of that pesky decay point.

						Points
Quentin	1	3	1	1	3	9
Adam	3	3	1	3	1	11
Sam	4	1	4	1	1	11
Andrew	2	2	2	6	1	13
Joe	1	3	3	5	2	14
Steve	2	2	2	4	4	14
Anja	4	4	3	1	2	14
Jonny	3	1	3	5	3	15
Hannah	2	3	5	5	5	20