With eight of us this week, we split into two groups of four and my group started with Castles of Burgundy, which John and Beth had previously requested. I took rules explanation duty after Nige's farcical effort last week and, with a couple of prompts from Nige, I think we got it sorted pretty clearly. At one stage, I looked well behind the othersand feared I was going to be left for dust. However, the game is pretty well balanced and I managed to get back in contention. After the end of the fifth phase, Nige had a decent lead but he only scored four end-game bonus points, whereas John and I both managed twenty and that was enough to give John a very close win by just two points.