'master of all games' tournament On Saturday, I participated in Scott and Kerry's 'Master of All Games' Tournament. This has been a work in the making for some time, and was met with much excitement. I had been studying the games on their 'possible games list' and was ready to have some fun and possibly make it to the top 4 to earn my dinner. [Entry fee was $7 which included the price of pizza, and the top 4 placed gamers would at least get the entry fee back, with final #1 and #2 receiving an extra cash prize] It began at 12:30pm with the random selection of games and table/player arrangements. Six genres of games meant six regular rounds. Then, the top four would meet in a bracket final four of two-player games. My first game was Scrabble, and one of my opponents was Gee. The game went by pretty quickly, and I had a steady, yet modest lead throughout. I was very pleased to start the tournament with a win and 13 points. My second game was die Mauer. Since this is a game that I enjoy and have played several times, I felt fortunate to have been selected to play this one. Andrew sat across from me during the game, and we had our eye on one another, knowing that we both were in a 4-way tie for first place. I actually played a pretty good game, getting rid of all of my pieces about 7 or 8 times, and 5 in a row at the end of the game. But a 42 point round (points are bad in this game) cost me first place, and the win went to Andrew. The next round was Trivial Pursuit IV for me, and I barely eked out 3rd place out of 4. We then played a party game called 'Electronic Catch Phrase' and I managed 4th out of 8. Round five was Through The Desert, and I placed 2nd out of 3, which is worse than it sounds, b/c I was the only one who had played this game out of the three of us. Mike finished first in that one, with an astounding 80 points to my 71. This was perhaps the most intense of the regular rounds for me. The last genre was card games, and at this point I was ranked fifth. I was placed in a game of Hearts with Mike, Steve, and Kerry. Now, Mike and Steve were both pretty high on the rankings. I think that Mike was 2nd or 3rd, and Steve was 6th or 7th. So, this game had the potential to really make or break the three of us. Having played Hearts quite a bit in my youth, I was glad to be in this one, even with the competition. As it turned out, Mike had hardly played the game before, and Kerry didn't like it. However, I heard that Steve was really good at it and was one of the few games that he played often, so I kept a close watch to my left. I managed to avoid getting many points until the next to last hand (or maybe the hand before that), where I was stuck with the Queen of Spades (worth 13 points in a game where you're not supposed to get points) and a few hearts. This left Steve in the lead. Then the last hand began, and I am glad that it came before time ran out for the round, because Steve took quite a few points, which gave me the lead, and a place in the final four. After the last card game ended, the points were tallied and the final four players determined. At #1 was Andrew, which was no surprise because he had held that position all day. At #2 was Mike, who had played well all day. I ended up at #3, and Gee was at #4. And so the Final Four began. Now, the list of games for two players consisted mainly of abstract strategy games--a genre that is not my best. To determine what games were to be played, each of us ranked our top six out of the ten, and then lists were compared to see which game was best ranked between the competitors. Andrew and Gee chose DVONN, which is the same game that Mike and I chose. The rules state that the same game cannot be played twice, much less at the same time, so the game with the #1 player broke the tie and so A & G played Dvonn. The second choice, based on the lists of Mike and myself was Zertz--a game which neither of us had played before. Since none of us were very familiar with the games that we were playing, rules were explained by a third party (as in all the games played that day) and both tables played a practice game before the 'real thing.' Mike won our practice game, and I thought I was a goner. Stragegy almost completely eluded me in this game. However, I capitalized on a mistake late in the game that gave me the win. At the #1/#4 table, Andrew won the practice game, and Gee won the real one. So, in the final game it was Mr. Gee and me. The game was Gipf, which was very fitting, since the other two final four games were from the Gipf project. It's also a game that neither of us had played much. Gee had played a couple of times before, and I had never played against a human opponent. I knew we had a tough game ahead of us. We both knew how to play the game however, since we both had studied the rules, so we jumped right in with a practice game. Gee won that warm-up game, and I don't remember really what happened, except what was going through my mind: 'Oh great, he really understands this game--I'm a goner.' What then ensued was mostly a blur to me. All I know is that two out of three of my Gipf pieces were captured, and when the third one is gone, that's the game. I then managed to take Gee's second Gipf piece, and then it was back-and-forth. I noticed at one point that Gee only had a few regular pieces left, and when you run out of those, you lose, too. But he managed to get a few of those back, and the pressure was on again. From then on out I was concentrating on keeping my last Gipf piece safe, but I felt that Gee was gaining some ground for set-ups to remove it. I even blurted out 'You're going to win' or something like that near the end. What I didn't notice was that he was running out of regular pieces again. When he made his last move, I could hardly believe it, because he set me up to take his last Gipf piece! But what I didn't realize was that he HAD to do it b/c he had no more regular pieces. So, I did the spike to his set and won the so-called 'Master of All Games' tournament. It was a wild ride. Eleven hours and eight games later, I was the victor. Granted, there were only twelve competitors and it was all amongst friends, but it felt good. I posed for pictures and was awarded the trophy and $22 (70% of the remaining pool of entry fees). I tell you, after a day like that, I came home and had no desire to play any of my online board games. That was enough. But I did play a game with my wife on Sunday, and I am ready now to play some games for the sheer fun of it! Links: Pictures of the Trophy / The Gipf Project back to main | gaming page | update & events page