Charity Challenge 2022 - Week 3 Night 1
Welcome to Week 3! We’re getting near the half way mark in the competition and we’re at $205 of our $600 goal – thank you all for following along and contributing to our campaign in support of CAMH.
Special thank you to our most recent donor Charlene – we super appreciate your generous donation!
The Choice
Control of the evening is in my hands and I’ve gotta say – I’m doing dreadful this year. Rachel is up two weeks to none and I’ve gotta put a stop to her winning ways and quickly if I want to have any hope of winning the trophy this year. So tonight I’m going to pick a game where I have a ~75% winning rate against Rachel – tonight I’m picking Azul
The Game
Azul is one of those hobby games that has made its way into the mainstream. In the US you can find the game in Target or Walmart and it’s becoming one of those ubiquitous games that transcends the more hardcore hobby gamers. I’ll leave the explanation to the publisher’s official blurb, which does a pretty good job of explaining the game:
In the game Azul, players take turns drafting colored tiles from suppliers to their player board. Later in the round, players score points based on how they’ve placed their tiles to decorate the palace. Extra points are scored for specific patterns and completing sets; wasted supplies harm the player’s score. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins
boardgamegeek.com
To get a more detailed look at Azul, you can check out this video.
The Result
So usually when we play Azul I pull ahead of Rachel by quite a decent margin early and then usually manage to maintain that lead and pull of the win. Well *sigh* This year is different apparently.
I did manage to pull out a lead for most of the game, but only of about 5 points and when it came time to bonus points Rachel scored 21 to my 14 and well – that was all she wrote, Rachel had won 82 to 79 in one of our closest games of Azul ever, end to end.
And with that Rachel takes the lead in week 3 and is in pole position for a victory. I’ll have to go big tomorrow, there’s not much time left for me to turn this around.
