I am not that happy with this board. My bonus cards got me 14 points which is about right for 3 cards but I had to work hard to get those points, taking tiles I otherwise wasn't that happy about. I also didn't time the ending of the game all that well and had to put my 300 elbow blue room on just to finish up my purple room instead of planting something better there. With one more turn in the game my position is drastically better as I can get an additional 4 points for the blue room and probably another 4 points for whatever red / green room I used to finish off the purple. Still, I got second overall in the tournament, so I can't complain too hard about it.
The most interesting point in the entire game to my mind was on turn 1. I was fourth chair (Fourth chair is awful in CoMKL, and next year I hope we are on a bidding system for seating) and Drummo was in first chair. The flop contained the basement that likes basements, a 300 blue room, and a bunch of random stuff. The blue room is relevant because both of the blue room favours were out, so blues were extremely high value.
Drummo arranged the tiles with the basement in 1, four reasonable rooms in the 2, 4, 6, 8 slots, and the blue room at 10. First player bought a stairs, second player bought the room at 4, I bought the circular green room at 2, and Drummo was faced with a decision. His purchases at 6 and 8 were bad, so realistically he was either buying a stairs for 3 or paying 10 for the blue room. This decision was critical because player two was the only one in stairs, and the corridor square footage and completed rooms favours were out, heavily favouring basement play. If Drummo buys the blue room, player two gets the basement that likes basements for free on his master builder turn, and also gets to stockpile a ton of cash. This puts him in a dominating position. If Drummo buys stairs then Drummo has position in terms of buying basement rooms ahead of the others stairs and has more cash on hand to run through the next 3 turns.
Drummo bought the big blue room for 10. Player two happily put the basement at 1 buck on his master builder, got it, and proceeded to win the game in part by dominating the completed rooms and corridor square footage favours. Drummo came last.
I am pretty sure that this was the key play that set up that victory. Now, player two played a tight game throughout, and I don't want to take away from that. But getting that basement room for free and making sure he had a big bankroll right from the outset was crucial to his dominance. Drummo also had cash problems throughout the game, and I think these were exacerbated by him blowing too much of his stack on turn one. The blue room he got ended up being worth 11 points, but buying 11 endgame points for 10 bucks on the first turn seems too aggressive to me. Plus there is the argument that you need to be defensive and prevent any one player from getting too great a deal. This is something I focus on hard in CoMKL, more so than other players I think.
We were talking afterwards about the play and defensive play in general. Someone said that if I really wanted somebody to take the defensive stairs I should have done it myself. This is reasonable as a general rule, but I don't know that it applied here. I was fourth chair, so other players expecting me to be the one to give up value for defence seems unreasonable. Plus Drummo was in the ideal spot to defensive stairs, him being directly before the other stairs. Moreover, he lacked other good value options. He wasn't giving up a great buy to defend, just foregoing what I see as a sketchy purchase for 40% of his stack.
In general you can't just refuse to defend and always expect the last person in last to do the defending. People won't put up with that sort of leverage being applied if they are good. On the other hand you probably should expect defensive play if the player in question has no other good options.
At any rate this game really reinforced the value of position in CoMKL. Playing after me is not ideal because I am going to play defensively. I will guess your cards held (made 3 guesses during the final match and was correct on all 3) and work hard to prevent you getting the tiles you want. But some players lean far more towards offence rather than defence and playing after them will get you deals now and again.
In the end the game itself was a great experience. I am friends with all three other players at the table and having a final table with three strong gamers in a game I love where everyone has a good time is a far more positive experience than merely winning. It doesn't hurt that Drummo and I were trashtalking the entire time and I crushed his hopes and dreams along the way. He claimed that since I didn't win the game I can't really crow about my victory... but I submit that I beat him and the player to his left won, which thoroughly cements my claim of superiority at CoMKL. If lefty wins, you should have done something about that!
Maybe next year I will finally get my 1st place trophy at that game. Eventually a final table has to work out for me!
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