With seven of us this week, we split into two groups and my group of three tried out Brass, a game I've been wanting to get to the table for ages but the unintuitive rule book has made it difficult. In fact, it took us over half an hour to go through them and regular episodes of "can you just pass me the rules" throughout our playing. We didn't manage to finish but were fairly sure Mark K was unlikely to be overturned with more points and more cash at the end of the Canal period.

I don't think we had appreciated how forgiving the game was in the taking of loans and Nige and I both set out to try not to take them. Mark, however, cottoned on to the fact that if you were going to take them then take them early, particularly as you don't actually pay them back, simply service them for the remainder of the game. Anyway, I think our ratings reflected our lack of appreciation of how the game worked and I believe we will approach it somewhat differently next time we play.