Our true love was kind to us last night at the Red Lion. She gave us two walk-ups, running the count to 13 players, enough for our first two-board session since Opening Night. Now our allies, on the other hand, holiday season or not, they were being bitches.
Game No. 259 started at around 7 p.m., with Matt Sundstrom tapped to pull double duty and ex-pat and guest of honor Aash Anand, in town on business, on call in case we needed two. The contest featured two more new faces, plus another returning for a second go-around with the Weasels. It ended by time limit after the Fall 1905 turn in the following center counts:
Fogel found the Weasels on the web, as did Trevino, who specifically went looking for a group after reading the Grantland article. Chalk up another one to that great piece. Serednesky, meanwhile, played for the first time with us at last month’s Red Wednesday, and that game came on the heels of his first play ever, with members of the State Department in Ethiopia.
Meanwhile, as the rest of waited for the latecomers, we had the opportunity to teach the game to Anand’s friend Mattias Darrow, who had stopped by to see Aash. We were able to twist his arm into playing for the first few turns, so with him in France, we started Game No. 260 at around 7:30 p.m. That game ended by time limit after the Fall 1904 turn in the following center counts:
Austria (Don Glass): 8; 31.373 points.
England (Ali Adib): 7; 24.020 points.
France (Mattias Darrow; Aash Anand): 6; 0.000 points.
Germany (Jim O’Kelley): 5; 12.255 points.
Italy (Matt Sundstrom): 2; 1.961 points.
Russia (Chris Kelly): 5; 12.255 points.
Turkey (Ben DiPaola): 1; 0.490 points.
Darrow (no relation to Clarence) was a quick study (didn’t hurt that he had a great teacher) and played well. He left at the start of the Fall 1903 turn, but he took our Meetup and web addresses with him and said he hoped to sign up for a game sometime when he could play until the end. Aash took over at that point, and per club rules, neither player scores the position. The square, however, counts toward the sum, so this game totals less than 100 points.
You can find the supply center charts here. Maybe someone (Aash?) will contribute commentary.
Dan Burgess showed up after the games, and several of us hung around until closing time, talking about life, death, baking soda, the hobby, and whether the center of the Diplomacy universe was in fact Dan’s bathroom, Eric Brown’s library, or my pants. (It’s my pants.)
We hope to see you at our next Red Wednesday at the Red Lion, which will be January 14. Mark your calendars. Red Wednesday is always the second Wednesday of the month. And please join us next Wednesday for the Bar Room Brawl Championship game at the Lion. That should be a good one.
Finally, Pete McNamara will be hosting a post-Christmas game in Evanston on the 26th, and Matt Sundstrom plans to host another one post-New Year’s. Stay tuned for an annoucement about Matt’s game.
