Duke of Lizards
United States
Glad to be back in Amherst
MA
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This session report is part of the Wingman program by Eagle/Gryphon Games.
At the Boardgamers of the CSRA meetup, we pulled out the classic game For Sale. I led the game, but didn't play. Five of the players were new, and one had played before. It took all of 90 seconds to introduce the rules and give a few strategy hints.
The first round had a high property in the low teens and a low of 5. Bidding proceeded tentatively at first but the 6th player did put out 8k to win the high property. Not a good deal considering the next most valuable card went for only 3k.
In round two, the space station came out. With a value of 30, it's the best card in the property deck. Bidding opened at 3, and Matt, the next player went all in! He bid 13k. Needless to say everyone else passed. The result was 2 players got properties in the 20s for nothing. Nice deal.
There it is on the right
The final three rounds saw the group get a much better handle on how to bid effectively. There were no further crazy high bids such as we had seen before. Everyone enjoyed watching Matt getting stuck with the worst properties in each set. Cardboard box? Check! Outhouse? Check. His next best card was the igloo in the final round.
Welcome home, Matt
I quickly refreshed everyone's memory on the mechanics in the second part of the game, and we were off. Most of the people seemed to take a "save the best cards for last" strategy during the sell phase, which can be successful, except that the final set of checks included a zero, which was taken with someone's 20 card. Ouch!
I like the variant posted in the For Sale forums here on the geek wherein a player passes her cash and checks to the person to her left, who then counts and announces the total. It adds just a bit of tension at the end which is a nice way to finish up this fun little filler of a game. As you may have guessed, Matt's bid of 13k for the space station in round 2 was NOT a successful strategy and he finished in last place. Two players ended with 57k each, and the tie was broken by the player with the most cash being declared victorious.
Everyone enjoyed the game quite a bit. One older couple even watched the entire match and commented on how much they liked it. I've already had requests to bring this back to future meetup events.
Thanks for reading, and good gaming! 
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