Weekly summaries of our group's Wednesday night Catan games

The winter standings (in wins; point totals to come soon):

(1) *Steve: 4 (2) Kim: 2** (3) *Kristen: 2 (4) *Scott: 2 (5) *Pat: 1 (6) *Kathryn: 0*** (7) Kevin: 0

*denotes status as a regular player.

**two-point win.

***Stands for incorrectly spelling her name and incorrectly giving her a win during the season's first two journals.

It's been a good year for the Bickard's and email, which means it's been a good year for four of the five regular Wednesday night players. A few months ago, I used a chance connection with a New York Times bestselling author as the preface for a message to his email address. I received a thoughtful response within hours. Pat, after taping the Federer-Murray match on Tuesday Night/Wednesday morning at 3:30 am (and nearly covering his bases by recording all ESPN-related programming after 7:00 should the match run late and switch to another channel), awoke to discover the entire event had been switched from ESPN2 to ESPN at the last minute, relegating all his measures useless. He wasn't able to watch a single point with any sort of suspense, a reality he made clear in a heated email to ESPN in which he requested an all-expenses paid ticket to next year's Australian Open and included three expletives. Amazingly, they also emailed him back, rather impersonally, but in a specific enough way indicating they at least read his words. The email:

Dear Pat,

Thank you for contacting ESPN.

Schedule changes happen more often for sports than for any other type of programming.

In this case, Murray vs Federer was changed to ESPN. We apologize for any inconvenience this change may have caused.

Sincerely,

Derek
ESPN Viewer Response

Derek (no relation to Derek Jeter) was prudent in choosing to reply. Acknowledgment from the self-dubbed "World Leader" of sports, in combination with Federer's win (Pat's second favorite athlete) and the match's less than epic proportions (by all accounts Federer played great and Murray favored his back) were enough for Pat to accept ESPN's half-baked apology.

Emails. Roger Federer. The latter came into play in last night's Settlers game, for Pat, like Federer, had been in the biggest slump of his career. After nearly taking the first game (won by Steve for his season-leading fourth of the year), he capitalized on a poorly maintained longest road (truly a topic for another entry) and won his first game of the winter season with a rousing (and self-arousing) twelve victory points*. Will Pat's win be a preview of Federer's first major since Wimbledon 2012?

That was the headline of last night, garnished with images of the 26 year-old swishing victory shots in his kitchen, the background noise of another Knicks loss, and chatter of his fellow players publicly welcoming him back while privately wishing he was still the Federer of 2013.

Maybe the real story was Steve and his fourth victory of the year, earned by his usual method of resource accumulation, cities, and a late game special. I don't know if it's yet hit his conscious (or if it will still work when it does), but Steve's found a pathway to victory that's remaining under the radar just long enough to stay effective. In that way, Steve is the Novak Djokovic of our weekly games. Through will, natural abilities, and a European edge decidedly Eastern, they're always relevant at the end and, at that point, difficult to put away. Like Djokovic, Steve was forced to bow to more decorated players earlier in his career. No longer.

The same late game magic can't be currently attributed to Kathryn, whose early game leads (and subsequent increased attention by the robber) have cost her a few times this year. Her seat is hot -- so hot last night that it influenced her body temperature and forced her to leave without playing the second game. Princeton educated (which sounds the most like Oxford of the colleges the other four regulars attended), Kathryn is the game's Andy Murray, the Brit. After much hype, she finally put her impressive schooling to use during a banner fall season. But can she continue to win?

Who, then, between Kristen and myself is Nadal, and who represents the rest of the field? Perhaps neither, and the answer is a non-regular, our younger brother Kevin. Similiar to Nadal's early career clay dominance, in his early playing days Kevin could only win on the hardwood mahogany of his University of Pennsylvania dorm room. Also like Nadal, he's won some big games recently on other surfaces (Pat and Kristen's house) and has gradually accepted those as the most career-defining wins, even if he still pines for the rounds played on his native grounds. (He still won't agree to trades for hypothetical cards, also a topic for next time).

Thus, with Kristen and I unaccounted for, not everything fits within the scope of professional tennis in the same way it does with Settlers of Catan.

*We play to ten; he accumulated two "yellow cards," which, according to our style of play, can only be counted once someone on the table reaches ten victory points. I love this rule, but Kathryn isn't sure about it.

For entry two click here.

For entry one, click here.

For why Catan is the greatest game ever created, click here.