I got a call last night from my brother while I was washing the dishes (after I'd read The Hero and the Crown for over an hour) ... "How do you feel about teaching someone Puerto Rico tonight? We were thinking it would be a lot more fun with a fourth." He even agreed to give me a drive over to his house! Boy, and when I had talked to Stef an hour earlier she had said she was all burned out from going out the night before ... it sounded like a great opportunity to give her a chance to stay home and me to have a good time! So I agreed to Chris' plan and at 8:30 he whisked me off to his house for some gaming with him, Mrs. Him, and his friend Mike, still in town from the wedding. The first round was the Pepsi Strategy (corn and sugar) for me, and a resounding loss - my score 41 to Chris's 53 (Mike at 51, Mrs. Chris at 47). It was his first win out of all the times he's played Puerto Rico and Cataan, so that was good, but the margin of my loss was enough to convince me to abandon the strategy altogether - once again I saw half way through that there simply wasn't a way for me to get enough money to buy a large building, and that 10 points it would have earned was absolutely a winning margin. Chris' guest had so much fun that he suggested an immediate second round, and even though it was feeling late, I said, why not?

The second round I went for People and Money, with an hacienda to populate my plantations and a quick investment in coffee so I could get some f'ing cash. Even without the factory (Chris and Mrs. Chris got those), I was pulling in cash pretty regularly by about the fifth round (thankfully the only other coffee producer was on my left). Oddly enough having my own boat (Chris and I both got one of those) didn't really help me get that many victory points, but I bought it very early in the game so it did get some use. Final score: Me 66, Chris 60 or 63. I am convinced my win was because I clogged the largest ship up with coffee the very first time we loaded, and with no one else able to load on that boat besides me, the two folks without their own boats were forced to sit on their goods turn after turn, and even though they were able to store them it got so bad that they were unable to get goods during harvest time. We had a really good time, though, with some yummy Oreos and Lays chips to snack on and tons of hard cider left over from the wedding to drink. Worthy Opponent came by around midnight and hung out for a while then took me home.

Today is as nice as they promised all week that Saturday would be ... terrible weather for writing! Worthy Opponent is in rehearsal but will be back around two. We don't have any real plans for the afternoon, but I'd like to get my own copy of Puerto Rico prior to going to Cort's housewarming/game party tonight. (I'm going for four nights of PR in one week ... can it be done?)