Power Grid - 22 April 2009

Ni Hao!
This game never fails to impress and this week was no exception as the rivals, numbering 6, took on the Chinese Challenge. The Chinese map also comes with an altered set of rules meaning that power stations come out in strict order and players can only bid on what is there as power stations in the market only become replenished once the bidding round is over.

There were no chinks in Adrian's plan as he spotted the need to keep his options open by only buying power stations with duel fuel. Andy, however, went crackers and decided on a rubbish option. Orhan was determined not get egg fried rice on his face (no room, what with the beard, chicken sticks and Mr Kipling's pies) as he carefully avoided becoming trapped by setting up in the middle of the country and mixing his fuel options. James' sweet option of waiting for the best power plants went sour as he was continually outbid for these by richer opponents. You can always canton Deej to come up with the best optimisation of the 18 or so variables in front of him and this week was no exception. But, just for a bit of fooyung, this week he also decided to get involved in every bid just to make everyone pay a premium for their power stations. Kieron chopped and changed his plans suey was behind at first, but being cut off in the north meant that he just saved his money and could take away cheap power stations and buy resources cheaply. This left him able to (by keeping out of the red) book his place on the podium. Was this win from Kieron a sino things to come next week?
15 Kieron
14 Ade
13 Deej
12 James/Orhan and
9 for Andy