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October/November 2010
My apologies for the lack of a newsletter in October. It's been a hectic semester...
November has been an eventful month. EuroQuest took place down in Maryland, and EPGS members that attended were able to place first/second in one of the events. EPGS president Keith Layton made some important announcements at the last meeting. And I managed to squeeze in another chess tournament over the holiday weekend.
REMINDER: for the month of December, hours of operation for the Oxford Valley mall are extended for holiday shopping. For those of us who show up to play board games, that means more gaming time! The mall will be open from 8:00AM to 10:00PM on December 4th and from 8:00AM to 11:00PM on December 18th.
Game on!
-Ken
Important Club Business from the November 20th Meeting
At the last meeting, Keith Layton announced that the club has been facing financial difficulties and explained that this is partially due to the rapidly increasing rates for the liability insurance the club is required to purchase in order to conduct meetings at the mall. Even with the credits granted to the club for meetings cancelled due to snow and mall scheduling conflicts, the club could be facing difficulties meeting its obligations with the current membership rate. Keith proposed an increase of the yearly dues to $40. Reaction was generally favorable; it was pointed out that this still equates to less than $2 per meeting and similar gaming clubs already charge more than this. Other ideas were discussed, such as paying for half a year and for individual meetings, though it is worth noting that these topics have been discussed in the past.
Steve Cameron mentioned there is a Yahoo! group called epgs_location where possible sites for future meetings have been and are currently being discussed. For now, everyone wants to renew the current mall lease, if only to take advantage of the credits mentioned above. Steve also mentioned that next year is the 20th anniversary of EPGS and that he is working on a shirt design to commemorate this.
Lastly, officer elections are due. I have already announced my intention to step down from the post of newsletter editor. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I got the impression that Keith wants to remain club president for another term.
Barb Flaxington Wins EuroQuest Puerto Rico Tournament
EuroQuest took place over the first weekend of November. EPGS took first and second place in the Puerto Rico tournament. Winning the event was Barb Flaxington, who also won this event at the 2004 WBC, so its safe to say she knows a thing or two about the game. Second place was claimed by Alex Bove, who seems to know a thing of two about every game...
Also notable was that EPGS members Donna Davis and Kevin Gardner were at EuroQuest as part of their honeymoon. Congrats and best of luck with the marriage!
Lightning Strikes Twice: Ken Horan Goes Undefeated Again at 2010 National Chess Congress
Last year, I managed to share first place in the under 1800 section of this tournament. This year, I played in the tougher under 2000 section and finished with a score of four wins and two draws. This was in the same result as last year, but this year it was only good enough for a three way tie for second place, as the tournament winner won his first five games and took a draw in the final round to capture the top prize. With this result, my rating has hit an all time high. It stands to reason I may have to play in the under 2200 section of next year's congress...
The Games We Played - October/November 2010
Please accept my apologies as this list is incomplete. I do not have a list of the games played at the October 16th meeting.
The Axis & Allies faithful were in full force, and played at least eight games over the past two months. I have a sneaky suspicion that many of the players of this game will be at the mall at 8:00AM this Saturday to "help" mall employees open the doors. Second most played was the new Euro game Egizia with six plays, one more than Le Havre. None of the games above are quick games by any strech of the imagination, so that says a lot about their popularity.
Click here to see the complete
list of games played in October and November.
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