2.1: A most unwinning beginning of 2010

or "Starting the new year in the middle of the Stone Age"

It's been a busy holiday season; I wish I could say it was 100% restful, but it seems that being away from work brings with it a whole new set of obligations.

On the plus side, time off and time with family means more time for gaming.  We did a bit of gaming on the 25th, had friends and family over for a game day on the 26th, and after an exellent dinner of roast beef on the 31st, we brought in the new year with a game of Stone Age, followed by a very close 5-player game of Small World, where we had a tie for first at 66 points (Jackie and David), a tie for last at 62 points (D and myself), and Danny sitting in the middle with 64 points. 

I should also point out that of the four games played during the transition from 2009 to "Twenty-ten," not only did I not lose three of the four games, but I came in last in every one of the games I lost.  My lone victory was in a filler, a ten minute game called No Thanks!  The biggest loss was a game of Stone Age that began in 2009 and ended in 2010--okay, it was actually two hours, but I lost to two people that had never played the game.  I don't expect to win every game that I play against inexperienced players (though experience can be an advantage), but it's not even as if I can say it was a close game.  Well, it was a close game, for David and Danny, who took first and second, each having around 160 points.  I was around 40 points behind Danny.

Perhaps the worst part, however, was my brother David proclaiming that he was the Chief for the next few days.



***

Well, that was the end of 2009, thankfully we've already started this year's gaming pretty strong, having already had a game night on January 2nd, which also brought me the title of Chief by crushing my brother David in a 4-player rematch of Stone Age.

In 2010, my goal is to keep a normal posting update, as stated before, once a week Monday or Tuesday.  Also, I may consider efforts to increase reader numbers, and plan to have some guest bloggers do a few posts this year.

Just for fun, let's look at my personal gaming stats for this past year:

• Total games played:  105 (that's an average of about 2 games a week)
• Number of different games played:  53
• Number of games played only once:  34
• Number of games played 5 or more times: 4 (Small World, Crokinole, Pack & Stack, Wits & Wagers)
• Number of games played 10 or more times: 0
• Most played game:  Small World (played 9 times)
• Most games played in a single day:  8 games, on November 19th (during BGG.Con)
• Number of different games played:  53
• Month with most games played:  November with 28 games played (followed by June with 15, then December with 12)
• Number of blog updates:  25 (I started this thing on June 28th of 2009)