The second game of the night was Medici, this was mine and Guy’s first taste of this Kniza classic. This is a deceptively simple game, but one which you must remember the various ways to score. I was guilty of forgetting the points for the highest cargo value in the first round and accidentally found I had a high total and gained myself 20pts.

Nige in a now desperate attempt to get a banker game for a precious hall of fame win was favourite and set about the first of the 3 rounds in patient mode passing on a number of auctions in an attempt to get a good selection. I spotted this and mirrored the tactic; being a complete novice I felt this was a good ploy. The first round went without to much incident and left me out in front by about 20pts. I therefore attempted to repeat my success in the second round but as a visible leader was thwarted a number of times when hoping to get the goods type I wanted.

Mark G was acquiring a good selection of matching items when an auction I started gave Mark the opportunity to acquire 2 cards that would give him a excellent chance of winning. Well that was the play of the night. As the first to bid Mark had to ensure he bid high enough to win the cards, but not too much that he gave away too many points. After much deliberation he decided on a bid of 40!! This caused much jaw dropping from the experienced (and not so experienced) players. Not surprisingly nobody overbid.

Later in this same round Nige who once again had held back on bidding had the opportunity to show his top decking skills. He was able to acquire at the cost of one, three goods of the same type. (Cloth I think, or was it fabric…I was confused all night about that) This meant that Nige now was scoring 30pts a round on that type of good alone. Surely even Nige couldn’t lose from that good fortune.

The rest of us don’t really merit a mention, as we were bit players in this game between high bidding and top decking titans. The outcome would turn out to be very close with only a few points in it. But the final score went Mark G’s way and the all the doubters with their open jaws were proven wrong.