Thursday, May 17, 2007

Never Get Into a Pissing War with CyberKev

I've played many area majority games with CyberKev and I don't think I've ever won one. Louis XIV. Himalaya. Mykerinos. Carcassonne. Maharaja. Nude Twister. I don't think CyberKev has ever lost one. The problem is that no matter what area you try to get a majority in CyberKev has more guys and will always be able to get more guys. Then if you change to a different area he's got all of his guys there as well, so you can't win and you can't come second. It's very frustrating, and if I enjoyed those games more we'd have a fierce rivalry.

But there's one pissing war where CyberKev is world champion, so it's not just my butt that he's kicking, it's yours too. That's the "I've played more of the BGG Top 50 than you have" war, where he's currently at 49 (missing only Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation, Deluxe Edition). Next on the list are snoozefest and wtrollkin2000 with 41 each. CyberKev has also played the most Spiel des Jahre winners (27, compared to 23 for mkgray and jcarvin) and the most of The 100 (91 compared to jcarvin's 87). Furthermore, this amazing man has recorded plays of 858 distinct games, compared to only 772 for jcarvin.

Does this make CyberKev the world's most experienced boardgamegeek? It's hard to tell. People like huber and TomVasel don't record their plays. Nevertheless, it's safe to assume that CyberKev is the paragon of geekdom in Brisbane and probably Australia. We're honoured to have him! Just don't get into a pissing war with him.

(Oh... I did win Union Pacific.)

1 comment:

Kevin S. O'Brien said...

No, I'm just a gaming fanatic who has turned his focus recently toward making and recording the numbers.

Part of the reason my numbers are high is that I have focused on getting my documented plays (kept in various notebooks and scraps of paper) into BGG, and those date back to 2000. Most folks don't have records that go back that far, but they were certainly gaming then!

And there are many, many folks who have done, and continue to do, much more than I do. Many of the gamers on your statistics site log in more games played per week/month/year than I do, so they're already on their way past me.

And just to take a look at a couple of individuals in Australia: Doug Adams (dougadamsau) in Melbourne has rated 1,038 different games on BGG - so I assume he's played at least that many distinct games - and his ratings *all have comments*! And he's written 628 session reports! Pat Brennan in Sydney keep track of his plays in a private database, but I know he's had over 6,500 plays of over 1,000 distinct games. He's rated 948 games on BGG and written 492 session reports! And, as you said, there's Tom Vasel and Joe Huber, not to mention Morgan Dontanville, etc., etc. I envy the amount of playing these people do AND their ability to actually produce written content.

At best, I am only a big fish only if we strictly define a very small pond. But, hey, I *do* like playing a lot of different games and just doing a lot of gaming.

One might say our hobby attracts its share of "devoted" individuals. You know, the types that create websites that keep track of statistics for themselves and 206+ of their friends. It's one of the things that make it so fun.

And it is, after all, all about having fun!