During this morning’s Qwirkle game we had a set of five diamonds awaiting the green one to be complete. It didn’t appear, and didn’t appear, and the board grew into a circle surrounding them, with just enough room available to complete the Qwirkle. The game focus moved to the outer parts of the board. I had a pair of greens, and set them up on the edge of a double green row for like nine points, and was pleased.
A move or two later I notice that set of five diamonds again, look over at that pair of greens I had just played, realized that, yes, I had used a green diamond for nine, when it could have been a Qwirkle. Oops. Confessed to Keldor that I had made a stupid mistake. He said what, and I tapped the green diamond. He gave the board a quick look, saw the row of four diamonds in the other part of the middle of the board, the one with room for one more diamond, but not two, and replied that there wasn’t room for it anyway. Realising that he didn’t see the potential Qwirkle, I managed to keep my mouth shut, and played on, hoping that I would get lucky.
Then he played a pair of greens in the same corner, also for something like nine points, and I really hoped I would get that final green diamond. But nope, we came into the end game, and it hadn’t appeared. I considered placing two of my three blues heading out from one of the other rows such that it would have killed that Qwirkle. Then glanced at the score, saw that I was far enough ahead that it didn’t matter if he saw it, so instead played my three blues over there, where they were worth more points.
He never did see that move, and I was very satisfied with my win.