My uni friends, Kin Seong and Mun Leng, was recently back from Australia and we got to a reunion dinner together. In the ensuing discussion, they commented that in my blog, the description of my gaming activities always has a description of my failed strategies! Geez, I mean, really? What do you loyal readers think?
In honor of that, I shall report the game that I played with them that night after the dinner and try to keep to the suggested game reporting format ;P.
The game we played was Ticket to Ride: Europe.
Being the ever generous gamer, I employed my short missions-long tracks strategy. How this works is that I deliberately handicapped myself by keeping only two short tickets, but went all out in the track claiming spree by claiming the 8-train route and one of the 6-train routes.
On the other end, Mun Leng played a balanced strategy with a long ticket and 3 short tickets. Kin Seong played aggressively and draw lots ‘o extra tickets over the course of the game.
And yea, verily, history repeats, in the end I lost, by 1 point to Mun Leng and 7 points to Kin Seong. The decisive factor was the claiming of the other 6-train route by Kin Seong, one step ahead, to deny me the 15 point jump. Kudos to both of them, however, for beating me AND breaking the 100 point barrier in their first game. They’re really good at it!
Next, I bring out Lost Cities for them couple to play.
Kin and Mun enjoyed the game and played it twice in a row! Me myself relax by the side as they try to outplay, outguess and out-chicken each other in tension filled games. Haha, with the two sample games I’m sure they’re addicted and want to find it by now.
So, in order to play the role of a boardgame crack dealer, I shall now point them in the right direction:
>http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/50<
Good Luck in finding the game! 
Analysis Paralysis - noun, boardgamer term to describe one who thinks too much.
example pics:
Note gamer on right hand side. A serious head scratching affair.
Note gamer on lower right. everyone’s arguing on what to do and already he’s reading the manual and analysing all possibilities.
Exhibit C: gamer on left. Exhibiting dreaded hand-on-cheek analysis mode.
What to do? I’m the gamer strategist!!! PH33R M3!!! MUahahaha
Note: as an aside, anyone notices how in the pictures teng hock always faces the camera and i’m always back to it? the camera man sure knows his framing methods.
Ok, so that was cheating. 
So here goes a proper recounting of the gaming extravaganza at Cameron:
Tragedy struck early in the trip when we realise that Hotels have to be left behind due to lack of boot space:
But we soldier on, with Ticket to Ride: Europe, Puerto Rico, Railroad Tycoon and Lost Cities. Hooi Teng brought Risk, Alvin brought Carcassonne and Kill Dr. Lucky while from the Northern end, Teng Hock provided Power Grid and Betrayal at the House on the Hill:
Night One have me and Alvin playing Carcassonne and Lost Cities before everyone was ready to go out for dinner.
Then we came back to play Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne. (my memory is a bit fuzzy on this… some one else might need to confirm it for me… I blame it all on the alcohol during the football match after the game! That and the Kpmg staff dance sequence. ugh!)
Next morning, it was a spot of Puerto Rico:
A game of Betrayal, in which Kong Eng was the traitor and unleash the demonic depths of hell upon us poor haunted house visitors:
And several games of standard Mah-jongg (chinese mah):
The last night wrapped up with two games of Power Grid. In both games, two players decided they couldn’t beat me in power plants and went ahead to end the game, handing the victory to some one else! Granted that I should have paid more attention in connecting cities, but should there be one more turn in both games, I would have won!:
The last morning we played some games, including another session of Puerto Rico and Betrayal. Other than that, I can’t remember again.
Overall, a good fun time. Disappointment: don’t get to play Hotels, Railroad Tycoon and Risk!
Just want to make a post here stating that: sorry for not updating my blog on the recent cameron trip (boardgame extravaganza!), but I’ve been trying Heroes 5 to check whether it still interest me or not.
Sadly, no! Yup, sorry to all fans out there but Heroes 4 is the pinnacle of the series. So there.
