This game report from last month’s Red Wednesday at the Red Lion is long overdue, so for my title, I’ve chosen a minor detail that I found interesting. Only six players showed up on February 11 for our club’s 264th game, so for only the third time in club history, we played with fewer than the standard seven. And for the first time, we used the Italian Roulette variant to deal with that problem.
For those who aren’t familiar with the method, Italian Roulette is when each of the six other players submits orders for Italy and one set is drawn at random. So each player’s Italian set becomes another point of negotiation.
Veteran Matt Sundstrom described the variant as "interesting" and "much better than Civil Disorder."
It’s also a lot better than sending people home when they’ve come out on a cold winter night to play some Dip, especially when two of the six who showed up were first-time Weasels. The game ended after 1904 in the following center counts:
Austria (Jake Langenfeld): 7
England (Matt Sundstrom): 6
France (Ali Adib): 5
Germany (Don Glass): 6
Italy (Italian Roulette): 2
Russia (Kurt Paradis): 2
Turkey (Herb): 6
Note that because they were playing with fewer than seven players, the game was considered an exhibition and thus did not count for score. You can check out the supply center chart here, and when you do, you’ll see the thing that I found interesting, and that’s that Italy actually grew in the final year. That must have been a fun final turn. I’d love to hear about it.
Thanks to the vets for coming out, and welcome to Jake and Herb. Let’s get more than seven for our next Red Wednesday at the Red Lion!
