Power Grid - 27 June 2007

With most of the rivals away and some AWOL, Russell was drafted in to join Stuart and Kieron for another cracking game of Power Grid. We played the Benelux countries which have the interesting rule that any ecological power stations immediately become available if they are turned up. The 33 'green for 4' station appeared very early and Russell immediately snatched it for face value as Stu and Kieron had already bought their stations. Stuart's power stations were resource dependent and Kieron had a mixture including a trash burning station that he only used once. Building was fairly rapid in an open board and Stu soon started phase 2 after about 30 minutes. Kieron and Russell had a moment of madness when the 50 'blue for 6' turned up. Kieron eventually won it for 141 Elektro and was cleaned up for the rest of the evening! The game ended before the third phase even began when Kieron helpfully pointed out to Russell that with the money he had left over from not buying the 50 point station he had enough funds to build to 17 cities, end the game and claim victory for being able to power just 10 cities!! Stuart was left being able to power 9 of his 13 and Kieron, although he had stations totalling 14, could only power 9 as he ran out of money to build any cities or buy resources to power the stations! Thus is was 1st Russell (again)10 powered cities, 2nd Stuart (more money than Kieron) 9 powered cities, 3rd Kieron 9 powered cities
What a great game this is.