zwischenzug (ZVI-shen-tsoog) — noun

A chess tactic in which a player, instead of playing the expected move, first interpolates another move, changing the situation to the player's advantage (such as gaining material or avoiding what would otherwise be a strong continuation for the opponent).

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Happy New Year!

Image by Chris Norwood
Well, the disappointment of Christmas gaming gave way to starting the New Year right.  I played exactly ONE game in December prior to December 31st, but a good friend of ours came over for New Year's Eve and we broke out Pandemic and it's expansion, Pandemic: On the Brink.  This expansion is really several expansions in one, so I will need to play all of the different variants before I review it.  We were able to play standard Pandemic with new roles, and got in one game with the Bio-terrorist role, played against the other players by my son. He won, but in a sense the good guys have to beat two opponents, the Bio-terrorist and,  as usual, the game.  We were beaten more by the game than by the bad guy.  In the end, we won one game out of four, which isn't bad for us.  That makes a total of 42 games of Pandemic for me; this is just one of my favorite games.

And the new petri dishes are awesome!

Happy New Year!


2 comments:

  1. This game intrigues me. The subject is right up my alley, but I'm not sure the rest of my household cares or has the attention span to play it with me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They would love it, I'm sure. The cooperative aspect would really be appealing, and helps with the younger ones since adults can legitimately help. Furthermore, since everyone wins or loses together, there is really no one wearing the title "loser". Of course, it only plays four, or five with the expansion.

    ReplyDelete

Go ahead and trash talk -- I can handle it!