If we've learned anything from 343 games of Windy City Weasels Diplomacy, it's that there is no honor among Weasels and that no good deed goes unpunished. Yet time and time again, those lessons must be relearned the hard way. Wednesday night at the Red Lion, it was the player who hosted the very first Weasels tilt nearly 12 years ago who flunked out of the club's School of Hard Knocks.

We managed seven years in Game No. 343, played at the Red Lion on Flag Day. The game ended by time limit in the following center counts.

Q: How many Trottas does it take to coordinate schedules?

A: Apparently more than three.

Game No. 342, played last night at Seven on the swanky New East Side, started more than 70 minutes late, due largely to miscommunication among the Brothers Trotta. As it turned out, the game got Jake, who had planned to drop by a game in progress after an evening meeting with clients, instead of Ian and their dad, Ray, although Ray did stop by even later to kibitz and watch basketball. (And he seems interested in returning to the table soon. Perhaps at Weasel Moot, June 23-25 at Diversey River Bowl...)

If we were to compare Russian board-tops to Russian state-sponsored hacking groups, then Bryan Pravel's game Wednesday night at the Red Lion was more Cozy Bear than Fancy Bear. Yes, he led wire to wire, and yes, he was nattily dressed in a sharp blue blazer, but he never seemed like he was in control of the game.

When Fancy Bear hacks you, he wants you to know it. For Cozy Bear, hacking you is good enough. Despite losing Rumania and Sevastopol and being under siege in the south for most of the game, Pravel quietly topped Game No. 341, which ended by time limit after the Fall 1906 turn in the following center counts:

It's official: Jake Trotta is dominating our 12th season of Windy City Weasels Diplomacy. Trotta posted another hard-fought board-top in Game No. 340, played yesterday at Bryan Pravel's soon-to-be-former home in River North. Trotta now has 4.5 tops on the year, which means, with three months of play remaining, he's in line to challenge Peter Lokken's all-time record of 7.5 tops, set in Season 6.

Trotta ran his personal league streak to three straight tops, including the last two league games played. No one has ever topped three straight league games. It looks like that drought will continue, as Trotta is not scheduled to play on Red Wednesday this week.

Game No. 340 went nine years. The final center counts were: