10 for 10 Board Game Challenge

I just heard about the 10 for 10 board game challenge and I think it sounds like a great idea.

The challenge is to pick 10 games and play them 10 times each during 2014.

Why does this sound so awesome to me?

Because with the nature of reviewing board games, we often play a wide number of games. But that also means our game playing time is frequently taken by learning new games rather than just playing games we love.

So this type of challenge will force me to ‘slow down’ a bit and focus on games I love and would love to play more of anyway. It can also let us dive deeper into games and try different strategies.

Plus (drafting off of our post earlier this week) it will be a great way to simply enjoy time with my kids by playing games we already know we love.

Regular followers of our board game blog will also know that I already keep track of the games we play through BoardGameGeek.com. (That’s what drives the widget in our sidebar showing which games we’ve played recently.)

And twice each year I give an update on the number of different games I’ve played and highlight those I’ve played the most. So even though I just heard about this challenge, I can include games I’ve already played from January.

Looking at that list, there are already 3 games that I’ve played more than 10 times this year:

• Dominion
• Descent: Journeys in the Dark 2nd edition
• Telestrations

And not far behind are a number of games that I’ve already played 5 times:

• Gravwell
• Memoir ’44
• Kingdom Builder
• Alien Frontiers

With that type of start to the challenge, I’d say I’m well on my way to completing it. I’m very confident that I’ll reach 10 plays with Gravwell, Memoir ’44, and Kingdom Builder in the next couple of months. (I hope to play Memoir ’44 a lot more than 10 times this year.)

So to make it really feel like a challenge to me at this stage, I guess I need to tweak it a bit.

With 7 months to go in the year, I’m going to pick 7 other games to play 10 times before the end of the year.

And I’m not going to pick “easy” games just to check the challenge box as complete. By “easy” games, I don’t mean games that aren’t challenging. I mean board games that only take 5 to 10 minutes to play and that we can play a lot back-to-back. These would include games like Hive, Tsuro, YINSH, City Square Off, Pentago, or Quarto.

Since there are a ton of games I love, it’s a tough list to keep to just 7. So I’ll keep with the essence of this challenge which is really about playing games that may not get to the table as much as we’d like.

Here are the 7 games I want to play 10 times before the end of the year:

• Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation (love the 2-player tension from either side)
• K2 (newly played this year, and want to play a bunch more)
• RoboRally (played a bunch, but still haven’t tried all the maps yet)
• Sequence (easy for back-to-back, but one of mom’s favorites)
• Pandemic (it hasn’t hit the table for too long)
• Carcassonne (love it, but doesn’t get to the table often enough)
• 7 Wonders (only fitting for a list of 7)

What are the board games or card games you’d put on your 10 for 10 challenge list?

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