Gamex 2008 Blog - Pandemic Tournament and Friday Night

Hello from Gamex 2008. The con has got off to a great start on Friday with a big crowd of board gamers filling into the open gaming area and the early tournaments. I've decided to send some dispatches from the convention floor since we've got wi-fi in the hotel. I just love wi-fi.

Zev Shlasinger, Gamex 2008's Guest of Honor, arrived today and was perhaps a bit surprised to find the L.A. weather worse than that he'd been experiencing back in New York. This week in L.A. has been bizarre with 100F weather quickly turning into bizarre, windy and somewhat rainy conditions marked by a touchdown of a tornado and many funnel clouds. We're not accustomed to that kind of thing here in Los Angeles where the mantra is 'sunny and mild'.

But off to the gaming: I started the evening by playing a game that I will be showing off this weekend - a 10-inning nailbiter game of Pizza Box Baseball played against my buddy (and occasional BGB co-host) Mason Rourman. Mason is NOT a baseball fan and was fussy about the perceived lightness of the game (we played the basic game since we were learning). As the game progressed and I made note of where the game expands with the full rules, I could envision how much I would enjoy it with the full complement of rules. I can hardly wait to show it off at the demo tables tomorrow. Although the game is a little heavier than Harry's Grand Slam Baseball (a Burgess Family Favorite), I think it will go over well with Christina and Alaric.

At 6:00 PM, I ran the big Pandemic tournament. How do you run a Pandemic tournament, you might ask? Well, you can hear more about that in an upcoming Boardgame Babylon. I came up with a concept I liked, put it to Zev and Matt Leacock (Pandemic's designer) and they both thought it was a good idea. And it went off quite well - we had a shortage of Pandemic games but the players had a good time even though nobody won the tournament! Admittedly, we set the bar high but Pandemic is one of those games where you often have just as much fun losing as you do winning.

After this, I went over with Strategicon co-owner Mark Hyman and played Stone Age with two other fellows. This is my sixth or seventh play of this agreeable game from "Michael Tumelhofer" and I have a pretty straight strategy down now after winning my last three games. However, Mark managed a little beginner's luck and edged my buildings-plus-buildings-bonus strategy with all ten workers, every worker bonus and a lot of cultural cards. After one more Pandemic and a lot of rules review, plus some good chats with convention friends and Zev, I hit the sack. A more social day than a game playing day but that's okay - conventions are for reconnecting with old friends and new, too, not just games.