Last night we had 4 knights convene for a game of Black Friday. Frank, Eric, Scott, and myself took on the rolls of stock market traders in this classic design from Friedemann Friese.

This game was new to all the other players around the table. The game explanation could have gone smoother, there are some finicky details with the market movement mechanics. Players turns are relatively straight forward, you either purchase stocks or commodities, sell stocks, or pass. The strategy is making the best guesses of how the market is going to move from the incomplete information available to the players. The only thing that is certain is that at some point in time in the game the market is going to crash and you do your best to time the market to make the most money.

Eric started quickly locking in his profits by purchasing commodities (precious metals in this game) while keeping enough cash and stocks behind to be able to play the market. Frank went all in on the yellow stock (Twonky racing at it’s finest). While Scott was trying to play a few different stocks in the game and not getting a great return. I focused on two primary stocks early in the game orange and red, then dropped orange for green but kept playing the red market. Locking my money into the commodities when one of my stocks made a big move upward.

I sold out of the red stock a turn early when its price was $108 by the time it came around to me again red was sitting at $208 and Eric had turned a huge profit on Red. I thought that his sale of 3 red at $624 might give him the game but I managed to hold on for the win.

Final Scores:

  Knight Score
1 Luke 3 Gold, 2 Silver, $34
2 Eric 3 Gold, 1 Silver, $0
3 Scott 2 Gold, 3 Silver, $38
4 Frank 2 Gold, 0 Silver, $84