PAX Unplugged Post Mortem and Puzzle #92

Good evening, Takkers!

It's been a busy couple weeks for me: working, planning, packing, traveling, PAX-ing, traveling, unpacking, and getting back to work :)

But, tonight I can finally take a bit to evaluate and share my experience at the convention.

This was only my second board game convention (the first was GenCon earlier this year). It was another great experience! Even though there were thousands of people in the convention hall, everyone was both polite and excited to be there. The energy surrounding this event was enough to keep me buoyed each day until 2 or 3 am, when I finally had to crash and get ready for the next day.

Friday and Sunday were partial days for me, but I filled them to the brim with board games, card games, and great conversations. Saturday was my Tak day, beginning with a USTA breakfast meeting, then setting up and helping run the tournament, a lunch on the run, followed by a meeting with Greater than Games, and another short USTA meeting.

The tournament was a great success, especially given the short notice for both us and the attendees. We filled the 16 seats and had a waiting list, to boot. The Swiss format let all participants get in 4 rounds of continuous play with 4 different opponents, maximizing the bang for the buck. Congrats to applemonkeyman for taking the win, undefeated! He walked away with the Arcanist's board, a set of stone pieces, and a PAX Event Champion pin. A great thanks to all the other participants and the other 3 members of the USTA Board that helped organize the event. If you didn't make it to this event, hopefully you can make it to the next one!

The Tak meetings were all productive and positive, and we hope to have news to share with the community as the plans we discussed are brought to life.

I got to demo Tak to a few people, one of whom really took a shine to it. My puzzle for tonight comes from our first game. We called 'tak' and talked about strategy during each move, so the game went to flats, giving me a chance to talk about that aspect of the game (which I don't normally get to do during a demo game). I thought this would make a nice introductory Gaelet puzzle. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a Gaelet is a forced flat win, as opposed to a forced road win (Tinue).
With a Tinue puzzle, you use 'tak' threats to force your opponent's hand; in a Gaelet puzzle, you use 'tak' threats as well as the threat of placing your last stone or filling the board.

Since you can't see the stones remaining or some of the stacks that clearly, I made this into a ptn.ninja frame below:

I should be back to my normal schedule now and be posting every Saturday evening (Eastern).

Thanks and enjoy!