H-Index: 20

There is a concept in the world of academia called an H-index, which is used to measure the productivity and impact of publishing authors. Your H-index is simply the number H of papers that you have published that have been cited at least H times. Mrs. Owl proudly sports an H-index of 5.

It is common in the world of board games to use an H-index as a way of measuring one's productivity as a gamer, where H is the number of games that one has played H times. I am fond of reminding Mrs. Owl that I have a much higher H-index than she does, whereupon the conversation usually devolves in tone, for some reason.

Last time I gave an H-index update here on the Leaflocker, it was in the early days of my abortive attempt at Blaugust 2017, and I was keen for it to become a regular feature article here. Since then, I've upped by H-index seven times and completely failed to update you all about it, so here's a bit of a catch-up.

H=14. 17/07/2017 - Riichi Mahjong (14), Micropul (17), Codenames (73), Hanabi (72), Red7 (33), 7 Wonders (25), Paperback (19), Between Two Cities (19), Istanbul (17), Resistance (17), San Juan (16), Hey! That's My Fish! (15), Ticket to Ride: Märklin (15), Tsuro (14), Codenames: Pictures (13)

 I talked about Micropul a little last H-index post, but it's a neat little print and play game and I happen to have a particularly neat copy thanks to the laser cutting efforts of my friend and fellow Blaugustine Alecat. It looks great on the table and often attracts interested parties if I get it out and just play around with a tiles a little bit, so it's really just the fact that it's only a two-player game that holds it back from being a regular part of my gaming diet. My buddy Andy and I play the occasional game together over a lunch now and then -perfect for a snack of a day that evokes though but doesn't make you work too hard- and he accounts for more than half of my plays of this one.

Believe it or not, there was a time when I struggled to get a game of Mahjong happening in Oxford. I'd brought my set from home, but just when I taught a couple of people, they upped and left me and I despaired of ever finding a decent hanchan in the UK. Now, four national tournaments, many bottles of fine sweet wine and a seemingly infinite number of riichi pinfu hands into the future, sometimes it feels like I have to try hard to end up NOT playing mahjong in the common room at the end of the day.

Codenames: Pictures dropped off this list after it went missing from the common room. I'd have something to say about people that take nice things from communal spaces, but it's late and I've been told never to go to bed angry, so we'll leave that topic alone for now. Except to say that I miss playing Codenames: Pictures, I don't think it's as good a game as its older brother, but it makes for a nice twist on a old favourite.

H=15. 16/10/2017 - Diamant (15), Hanabi (83), Codenames (81), Riichi Mahjong (37), Red7 (33), 7 Wonders (26), Istanbul (23), Paperback (21), Between Two Cities (20), The Resistance (19), Tsuro (18), Hey! That's my Fish (17), Micropul (17), Ticket to Ride: Märklin (17), San Juan (16)

The first time that I ever played Incan Gold I knew that I had to get myself a copy, but it wasn't until the reprint came out a couple of years later that I finally added this push-your-luck game to my collection and it became a staple of college game night. Games that work at high player counts are much sought over around the coffee table on Monday nights and this one does a lot of heavy lifting for us as an icebreaker. Many a shout of 'Snakes!' followed by hysterical laughter has been heard around Brasenose after quiet hours in the last few years, and I'm sure it's been a contributing factor to many a noise complaint.

Honestly considering buying the college a copy of this so that they can have it when I leave, as along with Carcassonne and 7 Wonders my copies have taken a beating over the years at student hands and I'm sure they're going to miss them.

H=16. 12/11/2017 -  Chess (16), Hanabi (88), Codenames (84), Riichi Mahjong (50), Red7 (33), 7 Wonders (27), Istanbul (25), Paperback (21), Between Two Cities (20), The Resistance (19), Tsuro (19), Hey! That's my Fish (17), Micropul (17), Ticket to Ride: Märklin (17), San Juan (16), Diamant (16)

I don't think that it will surprise any of you to know that I've been playing chess pretty much as long as I remember. Like mahjong, I fell in love with the beautiful pieces before I understood how to play the game, but unlike mahjong it has a sheer universality that is just impossible to beat. I've played chess with peers in primary school, in the chess club at high school, with small groups of enthusiastic children just learning the game, with refugees that I didn't share a language with, and most recently with a small group of chess tragics in the stately surrounds of an Oxford common room. A significant number of my over-the-board games as recorded here come from my series of tightly-fought head-to-head battles with Matt S, but I've recently gotten back into playing a bit online again on chess.com, so feel free to challenge me there if you're up for a game. Don't worry, I'm still really not very good.

H=17. 19/12/2017 - Carcassonne (17), Hanabi (93), Codenames (88), Riichi Mahjong (56), Red7 (33), 7 Wonders (29), Istanbul (26), Tsuro (23), Paperback (22), Between Two Cities (20), The Resistance (19), Chess (18), Hey! That's my Fish (18), San Juan (18), Micropul (17), Ticket to Ride: Märklin (17),  Diamant (17)


This tile playing jigsaw strategy game has been staple of my my gaming diet since I first discovered the modern hobby around the time that I started hanging around with Mrs. Owl: her family copy was already worn by then and my own copy is showing the telltale signs of being handled with varying degrees of care over the years.

It seems a bit strange that Carcassonne took so long to make it onto this list, -I must have played an awful lot of it prior to starting to record game plays back at the start of 2016-, but somehow while it's undoubtedly an old favourite and a timeless classic it's not the type of game that you play multiple times in a row or pull out week after week, it's more the sort of old friend you drop in on now and then, always pleasantly surprised that you like each other just as much now as you always have.

H=18. 28/05/2018 - Ticket to Ride: Europe (19), The Grizzled (18), Riichi Mahjong (109), Hanabi (104), Codenames (97), Red7 (33), 7 Wonders (31), Istanbul (27), Tsuro (25), Chess (25), Paperback (23), Diamant (23), Between Two Cities (22), Carcassonne (21), The Resistance (19), Hey! That's my Fish (19), San Juan (19), Micropul (19), Ticket to Ride: Märklin (17)

The second Ticket to Ride game to crack this list -even if it's temporarily pushed it's brother out-, Europe and I have a fraught relationship. Mechanically I should hate it, with must-have routes, ferries that slow down the games and those bloody awful tunnels that can cause you to lose whole turns, but somehow when I sit down to play TTR: Europe I always have a tight, enjoyable game.

Also, look at those numbers! By May last year, Riichi had already overtaken Hanabi and Codenames to be my most-played game since 2016. A year prior I'd played it just six games of it. That's averaging two games every single week over the year, and that's nuts for a game that usually takes upwards of an hour and often a lot longer, especially at the pace we tend to play.

H=19. 6/06/2018 -  Ticket to Ride: Märklin (19), Riichi Mahjong (109), Hanabi (104), Codenames (99), Red7 (33), 7 Wonders (31), Istanbul (27), Tsuro (25), Chess (25), Paperback (24), Diamant (24), Between Two Cities (22), Carcassonne (22), The Resistance (20), The Grizzled (20), Ticket to Ride: Europe (20), Hey! That's my Fish (19), San Juan (19), Micropul (19)

H=19 came hot on the heels of H=18, with just only a week separating them, though they were a busy few weeks of gaming over the 2018 summer holidays. TTR: Märklin pushed it's way back into the list again for what I think is the fourth time. Not much to say about it that I haven't said in previous posts, except to reaffirm my faithful devotion to it as the finest of the train games, perhaps the very finest game of all, and to mention that the remake Ticket to Ride: Germany is but a pale imitation.

H=20. 28/05/2019 -  500 (20), Riichi Mahjong (173), Hanabi (118), Codenames (116), Red7 (39), 7 Wonders (39), Chess (39), Istanbul (32), Tsuro (32), Diamant (32), Paperback (29), Between Two Cities (29), Ticket to Ride: Märklin (26), Carcassonne (24), The Grizzled (23), The Resistance (22), San Juan (22),  Ticket to Ride: Europe (20), Hey! That's my Fish (20), Micropul (20)

It was a long time between drinks, with just a week less than an entire year since the last entry on this list, but when my family came to visit this summer we played a lot of this old favourite trick-taking card game, a reliable fall-back when my parents refused to play any of my new-fangled complicated European fancy-box games with me any more.

Despite a long history together, this game is forever inextricably linked in my mind with endless nights and endless pots of tea with dear friends over at Nerdhaus, and I'll never be able to bid no trumps with a straight face ever again.

~

Hopefully the leap from H=20 to H=21 is not as large as the one from H=19 to H=20 was, so you won't need to wait a couple of years for the next H-index update, but it would have to be a very productive month on the gaming front indeed for it to happen this Blaugust. In fact, I expect Mrs. Owl's number to go up before mine does. In the mean time, here's a graph to look at.