Dave and Steve came over Sunday afternoon to try out Taj Mahal. I've been itching to play this for weeks, and that itch was fully justified. This is a superb game, tense and clever and interesting - like a cross between Settlers and Poker! Final scores: me (68) Dave (57) Steve (47).

Then we went onto Ra, another Knizia masterpiece, and an ideal end-of-session game. Dave played very well, further refining his repeated-early-Ra-calling tactics, which irritate the heck out of everyone else but produced a victory for him this time: Dave (45) me (38) Steve (28).